In The End
by PandaFire McMango
Summary: After years in New York, with a whole story that had led him nowhere he ever expected to go, Kurt Hummel finds himself on a summer night, out with his boyfriend and his roommates, thinking of how things are-and terrified to move them even further. Future!fic with a (spoiler!) proposal, and all Klaine snuggles all the time. Quinntana guest-starring. My headcanon and I stick to it.
1. In The End

Well gosh, here I am again. This is like the fluffiest thing I have ever written and I STILL managed to sneak a teeny bit of porn in, so let's all be really proud of me.

This is my headcanon and if you have a little trouble following it, I don't blame you; suffice it to say that Adam and Brody are things of the past, Quinntana somehow captured my heart, and Rachel Berry isn't around when she doesn't need to be.

* * *

The Brooklyn Bridge isn't really very romantic. It's almost always crowded, bicyclists weaving their way between tourists and couples and the occasional burly dude with a forty-pound camera; also, the roar of traffic underneath the walkway can be pretty irritating, and in the summer, the entire belt of air above the Hudson River is sweaty and sticky.

But they all decide to walk across anyway, just because—because it's June and the thrill of graduation and the irritation of final exams have already faded to a hazy two-weeks-ago memory; because the sky is clear tonight, a dark crystalline black that glows with New York night-lightning; because they're all happy and still young and more in love every day; because why not, that's why.

Kurt lifts his chin and savors a cool breeze that snuck in from over the Hudson. He gives Blaine's fingers an absent squeeze as they stroll along the wooden pathway, following Santana and Quinn towards the center of the bridge. Blaine squeezes back and Kurt glances towards his boyfriend, whose wide-open smile is that much more wonderful because he doesn't realize that Kurt is looking at it. A sheen of summer-sweat covers Blaine's face and neck, and the breeze is pressing his linen shirt gently up against the curves of his chest. Black curly hair, mercifully free of gel due to weather-related issues ("it won't _stay, _everything just keeps melting and I look like Russell Brand!"), and the slightest shadow of evening stubble. Two bright hazel eyes that, swear to God, actually fucking twinkle. Blaine is so beautiful he makes Kurt's stomach ache, and all he can do is pray it never stops.

"Do you smell that?" Blaine asks, still looking ahead, still smiling.

"Smell what?"

"It's really summer now. Try it." Blaine inhales deeply, and Kurt follows suit—the dusty, warm, salty New York summer air fills his lungs. "Man, I love that."

"You're such a sucker for summer."

"And proud of it," Blaine replies with a chuckle in his voice.

"Yo, Kurt!" Quinn calls from up ahead, walking backwards as Santana guides her with one slim brown arm around the waist. "What's this place we're going to again?"

"It's called Spice, it's all fancy and stuff," Kurt tells her for the umpteenth time. Quinn raises an eyebrow.

"Is it Indian? Because I told you, after three and a half years of New Haven I really really can't handle good spicy food, at least not yet—"

"They have, like, pasta and stuff, Quinn, you'll be fine," Kurt says, rolling his eyes. Quinn sticks out her tongue and then blows him a kiss, while Santana snorts and presses her own kiss to Quinn's cheek. Blaine giggles as Quinn turns around again and throws her arm across Santana's shoulders.

"She's not very good at New York yet."

"Oh shut up, your first semester you practically cried when we got lost around Canal Street."

"I was tense!"

"You were something, all right," Kurt teases, a grin tugging at his lips, and Blaine gives him a little shove and digs a thumbnail into Kurt's knuckle.

_It is so strange that life can make so much sense._

_Nights like this are the reason why. The simplicity of his feelings for Blaine is staggering in the face of all the pain and grief they've caused each other: from the early days of fumbled first times and text-message dalliances, to the gut-wrenching obliteration of Blaine's Battery-park confession ("I was with someone" and the world ended right there on the Manhattan asphalt), to the messes and scrapes of the last three years—screaming fights over how to cook pasta that were really about Blaine scoring yet another role that Kurt had wanted in the Musical Theater Department's fall revue, a night of drinking when Kurt found himself grinding with a stranger and only barely managed to stop himself from going further, the suspicions and resentments of Kurt's overseas business trips after his Vogue promotion (part-time co-assistant editor of International Fashion) and Blaine's dance class retreats._

_But all of that is smoke rings and spiderwebs cracks, a scribble of unhappiness over a broad, beautiful, blank universe of love and contentment. The best parts of their relationship are simple. Their first time; their first reconciliation; their second (and much, much, much more profound) reconciliation—all those steps felt as easy as anything. Natural. Smooth. It was what their bodies knew how to do, what their souls knew how to feel._

_It took Kurt eight months to admit to himself that he wanted Blaine back, nine months to admit what was stopping him, and almost eleven to say it to Blaine's face—"I can't bear the thought that you could do this to me again. I can't love you in fear. I just can't."_

_It took Blaine ten seconds and one breath to answer. "There is nothing in the world I will not do before I ever, ever, hurt you like that again."_

"_Nothing?"_

"_I'll get on the floor and beg for your attention. I'll cry. I'll shout. I'll tattoo your name on my forehead or anywhere else that you want, you name it, I don't care if it hurts—"_

"_Blaine—"_

"_I just won't do that to you. I can hurt myself like that. All but the best part of me. And that's you, Kurt."_

"_Kiss me."_

"_Kurt."_

"_Kiss me, and don't talk, and don't leave me ever again."_

Simple. Blaine moving to New York, three years of college together, endless days and nights of just being together and happy and safe in the presence of the other. Easy. Smooth. Perfect.

Kurt casts his eyes ahead and swallows around the dryness in his throat. Santana and Quinn are also holding hands now, their twin ponytails bobbing as they trip in high-heeled sandals over the wooden boardwalk. Santana says something in Spanish and Quinn giggles. God, they look happy. God, he loves them. God, both of those things are so weird.

If you'd told him in sophomore year of high school that he would pay witness to the arrival of Quinn Fabray, graduated a semester early from Yale, at his Brooklyn apartment, for the sole purpose of a _The Notebook_-like roses-and-lilies _I've-tried-but-I-can't-quit-you-baby-_style declaration of love to Santana Lopez—if you'd told him that Quinn would subsequently move in and begin the only relationship he'd ever seen that was just as embarrassingly happy as his own—if you'd told him that he and Blaine and Santana and Quinn were out on a best-friends double-date in New York summer and that aliens had taken over the world and dinosaurs were discovered in Guatemala and thigh-high argyle socks had become a reigning trend in couture fashion—

Well, he might have believed the thing about the dinosaurs.

_Their dysfunctional little family, cobbled together from forgiveness and the fading memories of high school, has become almost unsettlingly close. Quinn is working in an office downtown as she waits to hear back from law schools, while Santana is just finishing her second year at Pace University (majoring in biology, of all random and inexplicable things); Rachel, who took more than twice as long as Kurt to get over herself and reach out to Finn before it was finally, finally too late, is still "living" at the apartment, but in recent times she's always at rehearsal for the national tour of Guys and Dolls (chorus member, but not for long) that kicks off at the end of the month. Thus, Kurt and Blaine end up spending most of their downtime with Quinntana, and almost against his will he's come to love both of these crazy women with the deepest parts of his heart._

_Quinn brings Santana down when she starts to get delusions of grandeur and threatens to knife people in the kitchen; Santana punctures Quinn's poor-little-rich-girl mentality at its most swollen moments. Quinn cooks stir-fries and plays Spit with Blaine until two a.m.; Santana finally swallowed her pride and now she helps Kurt with most of his homemade design, contributing everything from opinion to makeshift mannequin and test model._

_And Blaine. Blaine fixes appliances, he makes food, he washes clothes. He does his homework on the floor, surrounded by paper, sprawled out like a toddler on the rug. He laughs and toasts Santana with the weird banana-flavored beer she buys. He toggles the radio for ages until he finds an Oldies station and he literally begs them on his knees to let him listen for just a couple minutes. He stalks the girls' work schedules so that he can text Kurt to come home for an emergency and when Kurt barrels through the door, clutching a roll of gauze and a large stick in case there are dogs to fight off or something, he pulls his boyfriend down onto the couch and swallows his indignant exclamation with a hard kiss, rocking against him and working his hands over Kurt's body until Kurt is shaking with how good it feels, with the blind pleasure of Blaine's fingers trailing circles on his inner thigh and the base of his stomach and his shoulder blade and every private part of him, there for Blaine, for this man, for this life._

It's all unbelievable. It's all crazy. It's all wonderful.

And there's a possibility it's all about to go to hell.

Kurt's throat is dry again. He's nervous, so nervous, he has been since he finally did the deed and went shopping last weekend, and ever since he's been waiting and hoping and planning—and dreading dreading dreading the moment, because what if it doesn't work out the way he so desperately wants it to? The only person he's told is his father, and Burt was less than helpful; his only advice was, "Wait until after dinner, 'cause if you do it before you might have lost your appetite by the time the food gets there."

_Great, Dad. Thanks. Super helpful._

He loves Blaine so much. He wants this to be perfect. But when is perfect? When, how, what, please send assistance someone he is so scared because what if Blaine doesn't feel the way he thinks he does and what if this is a huge mistake—

"Hey ladies, hold on a sec!" Blaine hollers, snapping Kurt out of his speculative haze. Blaine cuts across Kurt's path and bounds up to the railing of the walkway, standing on tiptoes to look out over the river. They're halfway between the two bridge supports, right in the middle of the Hudson, and Blaine bounces up and down on his toes as he stares intently out at the dark water.

"What's the hold-up, Anderson? It's frigging toasty out here, I want AC!" Santana calls back over her shoulder. Kurt rolls his eyes and joins Blaine at the railing, following his gaze but seeing nothing of note.

"Blaine? Did you see a mermaid?"

"You wish," Blaine says with a grin. "There's a—wait, I just saw it—there!" He points, and Kurt follows the path of his finger to a tiny sailboat, way out in the Hudson, so small he can barely make it out—but then he hears a faint _weeeeeeeee_, and suddenly a shower of golden sparks explodes over the boat. Another whistling noise, and this time green and blue lights flare up like a wreath of fairy dust around the little craft.

"They must have fireworks!" Blaine exclaims, and suddenly it's like Kurt has been hit in the head with a tuning fork. The sound of Blaine's voice, lit up like a string of Christmas lights with an innocent joy and excitement that should be impossible for a man his age, floods through him like an electrical charge. Blaine is _there_, warm and excited beside him, and it's summer, and he just graduated from college and life is right there waiting for him and he doesn't want to wait until after dinner, he wants to start _now_.

Fireworks on the Hudson. A blindingly bright smile and the eagerness of simple joy. A history of staggering disparities.

If not after all of this, then when?

"Blaine Anderson." Kurt hears himself speak as if he's calling himself on a cell phone with bad reception. Blaine turns to him, backlight by the glow of Manhattan, still grinning.

"I know, I know, it's probably illegal, but look how pretty it is, Kurt, don't you think that would be fun, to bring a bunch of—"

"You are…we have done a pretty spectacular job of screwing with each other over the last five years," Kurt continues, a train of thought fuzzy and barely tangible in his head. Blaine's face falls a little, and his eyebrows knit with confusion. Behind him, Santana and Quinn are standing, waiting, tapping their feet with impatience.

"What?"

"We're good at that. We know how to hurt each other. And we know how to bug each other, and how to not get along, and we know these things really well because—I don't know how anyone could love another person as much as I love you, and when you love someone, you know just what gets them mad, and you know just what makes you mad. You know the worst. Because you know the best."

He steps back, looks Blaine up and down. Jade-green linen shirt, khaki shorts, tennis shoes, the tacky cowry-shell necklace Quinn won for him at a Pride fair. Shadows of muscle definition on his arms and calves. Uncertainty on his face. Kurt's future in his heart.

_The summer after they got back together, when Blaine moved his stuff into the Bushwick loft and Santana and Rachel spent the night at friends' places and he pushed Blaine up against the wall and rolled his hips with maddening slowness and reached down to mold his hand around Blaine's erection, and Blaine moaned high up the octave and buried his face in Kurt's neck, and they made love on the couch, the kitchen table, the windowsill, finally the bed, and then made pad thai and drank wine and made love again and lay on the floor giggling like little kids on an adventure together._

_The winter of his sophomore year, when his father had to undergo another round of chemo and he flew home and spent hours every day at the hospital, thinking of his mother and the heart attack and how easy it would be for his father to slip away for good this time, and Blaine called him in Lima every night, absorbing his worries and his sobs over the phone, murmuring nonsense syllables that all somehow translated into "I am here and everything will be okay."_

_The fall of junior year, when Isabelle gave him a real job and Blaine scored an Off-Broadway role in an original musical and they were so busy they hardly saw each other and then one morning they both woke up at 5 a.m. per usual and without a word they grabbed each other and had sex like starving men, making up for skipped workouts and unfinished memos with the most desperate and intense physical contact of their entire relationship thus far, and not caring even a little when Santana and Rachel banged around the kitchen all morning and cleared their throats and later that night arrived home with a cake from the Italian bakery that read "Congratulations, It's About Fucking Time."_

_The summer before senior year started, when they smoked a joint on the Highline and gave thirteen dollars to a saxophone player in a top hat and teased eels in a tank in Chinatown and read monologues to each other on the roof and drank too much wine and traded orgasms like Pokemon cards over the longest and dirtiest and most perfect nights—and fought the anxiety of freedom because they only had so much time to be ridiculous before real life started again but who cared, the only thing that mattered was the sound of Blaine's laughter and the flex of his chest against Kurt's back and the ragged breaths in his ear as Blaine dug bruises into Kurt's hips and drove them both to a frenzy._

_This last spring, when Quinn and Santana were floating around like two birds of paradise and Rachel was on the phone with Finn for an hour every day and he would sit on the couch putting the finishing touches on his design thesis and he would look down at the other end of the couch where Blaine was studying for his psychology final and biting his lip and a pulse of something would run through his body, because he was so utterly and completely home._

_This moment. Here. Now._

Kurt sinks down to one knee and pulls the little blue box out of his pocket. Blaine's eyes follow him down to the ground, and when they see what Kurt is holding in the cupped palms of both hands they go so wide it's a marvel they don't fall out and roll through the cracks between the wooden planks.

"I know you. Blaine, I know you inside and out and I want—I want to be the only man who ever gets the chance to do that. And I want you to do the same for me. So…so how about it?" he finishes lamely, and to take the edge off such a weak conclusion to this—whatever it is (because it is way way way too weird and awkward to be a proposal) Kurt pops open the box and the simple silver ring inside twinkles just like Blaine's eyes in the summer night.

Blaine is staring at him, mouth half-open, eyes still ridiculously wide. Kurt is aware that not only is he tying up traffic a bit—an inevitable result of kneeling in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge—but that a fair crowd of observers is building up around them. Front row center are Santana and Quinn, and out of the corner of his eye Kurt can see Santana mouthing wordlessly and Quinn digging her nails into Santana's arm. But really, all Kurt really has the cognitive ability to watch right now is Blaine, who is taking many long, long seconds to do anything other than stare at the ring in the box.

"Kurt…I…oh my God, no, Kurt, what," Blaine says breathlessly, and he actually takes a step back. Kurt's stomach drops down and splashes into the Hudson. "Kurt, what is this?"

"What do you think?" He can hear the onlookers muttering, hears the beeping of someone's iPhone as they start to record a video, hates himself for doing that Thing Smart People Don't Do and proposing in public. Perfect, year, right, perfect like _The Perfect Storm._ Kurt is drowning appropriately.

"But I—I can't!" Blaine stammers, his voice cracking, and his panicked eyes meet Kurt's now, torn away from the ring. "Kurt, the last time I decided to—the last time I made a decision like this, about you, I sent you to New York, I wanted—and then I nearly lost you forever and I can't do that again, oh my God, this is—I don't—I'm going to fuck everything up if—and what about when I'm old and I can only eat peas and you think you should have married someone with better teeth, oh my god I can't shut up—"

"_Blaine."_

Kurt's voice is steady and calm and low, and he himself has gone Zen. This always happens when Blaine freaks out; Kurt finds his own strength in the duty of bringing Blaine back down to safety. But this isn't a centipede in the sink or an audition or an Anderson family reunion. It's them, their future and their history, and right in this moment Kurt knows the power he wields with both.

"I can't mess this up again," Blaine whimpers. Kurt can feel his shock and his anxiety, like static electricity sparking in the breeze. "I can't make the wrong choice. This—this is the biggest choice I could ever ever ever—"

"I've already made it," Kurt cuts him off, and Blaine stops talking with a little hiccup. "I am choosing you. There, I'm done, that's it. And if you—if you choose me back, then that's the last decision either of us will make alone. We'll mess up together. Fuck things up as one, but not—not each other, Blaine. I want to give you my mistakes. And I want every single one of yours."

Blaine is staring at Kurt now, his eyes burning the skin off Kurt's face, and more people are gathering, and he can hear murmurs from the crowd, and Santana suddenly twitches in the background as Quinn's fingernails sink another quarter-inch into her flesh, and suddenly in the distance Kurt hears another faint whistle from the fireworks on the sailboat.

"Kurt," Blaine breathes, but he can't seem to find any other words. Kurt shifts on his knees (another oversight, these planks aren't very comfy) and raises the box a little higher so that it catches the light from the Bridge.

"Do you have an answer?" he says with a single raised eyebrow. Blaine swallows and meets Kurt's eye.

"You haven't actually asked me anything yet," he whispers, and Kurt clearly registers the snort that comes from Santana's corner. His lips twitch, but the moment is too big for a real smile, and he takes a deep breath—in through the nose, out through the mouth—and says it.

"Blaine Devon Anderson, will you ma—"

"Yes."

"…what?"

Something doesn't click. _Yes_. What? _Yes, I'll marry—_what? "You…you will?"

"Yes, of course, you idiot, you _idiot_, of course I will," Blaine chokes out, and then time is flying by with lightning speed, Blaine leaning down and wrapping trembling hands around Kurt's biceps and yanking him to his feet and Kurt's arms are around Blaine's neck and their mouths meet and the smell of Blaine is stronger than the smell of summer in his throat, and people are clapping around them and Quinn might be sobbing but Kurt doesn't care because the man in his arms is _his_ in a way that he never even knew was possible until this precise second.

"Oh God," Kurt gasps into Blaine's mouth, and then they kiss again, hard and disbelieving and absolute. Blaine fists a hand in Kurt's t-shirt and pulls their stomachs together, as close as they can be without breaking public laws of decency.

"I love you," from Blaine now, half-growl, half-whisper, and Kurt's eyes are wet but he doesn't care because he did it. He made it with Blaine, they got there in the end. From a Dalton staircase to the Brooklyn Bridge. Against all odds.

_They stumble into the loft, hands grabbing and yanking, joined at the mouth, lost in a whirl of heat and fierce happiness. The outside world was for tender words, for a reconnection after the worst almost-year of loneliness, for the final forgiveness and the very first renewal. The outside world was for the evolution of "just friends" into "just you and me, forever, each other's." The outside world was making out in the cab and laughing hysterically when Blaine tripped over the curb as they rushed towards the front door._

_But now no one is silly or laughing. Now they have that first job to do, the (second) first intimacy, and it's not funny at all, it's a sacred kind of struggle, to reacquaint themselves with the idea of sex in love, of sex as the rite of being a couple. Not bros helping bros, but one hand taking another and never, ever letting go._

"_God, I missed you," he pants into Blaine's neck, and in response he gets a low moan and an almost violent clutching at his waist, his hips, his ass, the backs of his thighs—Blaine hoists him up against the door and holy hell the boy is small but the boy is strong, and Kurt can barely draw breath with how close Blaine is, how hard they're pressing together, and how incredibly right and overdue this moment is._

_Blaine is hammering into him, again and again and again, driven by a need more powerful than the cognizance it would take to step back and actually take off their clothes. The loft is empty and people shout outside and cars are honking through the open window, but Kurt's head is spinning and he can't register any of it, nothing beyond the fact that he wasn't too late, he wasn't too late, he wasn't too late…_

_His body is on fire, it feels so incredibly good to be here in this moment, Blaine's hands hooked under his thighs and their lower bodies crushing together in a devastating rhythm, the pulse of pressure building him a little closer to climax every time, and Kurt is arching back and gasping, one hand buried in Blaine's hair and the other pressed flat against the door, because as much as he would like to strip Blaine naked and spend this entire night, this entire life-changing night of freedom and reunion, working Blaine over with delicate precision until they were both crying with the needle-sharp pleasure of a partner who knows just where you come apart—as much as he would like that, right now his body is absolutely powerless to do anything beyond keep its balance and not bring them both crashing to the ground, at least not until they get there, not when they're so close and this is the beginning of a new forever—_

_Kurt comes first, he can't help it, the reality of Blaine being here and his is overwhelming. A final grind of Blaine's cock against his own, the sting of Blaine's teeth on his collarbone, and he orgasms with a jolt, choking out white noises, digging his nails into Blaine's neck. Blaine half-sobs against Kurt's jaw, his body still steel-hard and tensed up against Kurt, and even as Kurt is still bucking up against him and lost in the rush of pleasure Blaine shudders and gets there too, pressing Kurt so hard against the door that his ribs creak, a raspy whine dragging itself out of him as he rides everything to the finish._

_They collapse to the floor, completely and utterly spent, ridiculously still clothed. Blaine wastes no time in burying his face into Kurt's chest and tugging him close, cuddling up like a baby bat. Kurt fights to catch his breath and throws a leg over Blaine's hip, who cares how gross his pants feel. They twine together, there on the cold and un-vaccuumed floor._

"_That was—"_

"_Kind of insane," Kurt finishes, and Blaine giggles weakly._

"_I feel like I just got hit with a bomb."_

"_I've been called worse." Blaine giggles again and nuzzles Kurt's throat._

"_You feel so good…you didn't feel like this on Valentine's Day."_

"_Wonder what's changed."_

"_Oh God, Kurt…I…thank you, I know you said not to say it but thank you for—"_

"_Don't." He actually presses a finger to Blaine's mouth, and of course because Blaine is actually a five-year-old kid inside, he immediately bites it (gently). Kurt yelps and swats Blaine on the cheek; he gets a grin and another nuzzle for his trouble. "Don't say that, you—you dork. I made up my mind and now—let's just do this. We already know how, we just have to…"_

"_Start?"_

"_Exactly."_

"You absolutely _bitch_, Kurt Hummel," squeals Santana as she throws her arms around him. "You were going to put a ring on it all this time and you didn't _tell_ me?"

"Sorry," he replies through a mouthful of black hair. A couple feet away, Blaine is whirling Quinn around and around in circles. Kurt's heart, already full to bursting, swells another dangerous inch.

"You son of a bitch, congratulations," Santana whispers to him, and plants a resounding kiss on his cheek. He squeezes her tight and then steps back, hands on his hips, to receive a dazzling smile.

"Thank you, Auntie Snixx."

"Oh my god, do you have any idea how long you've made us fucking wait for this? I called you little Furby gays as wedded and bedded, like, the first day I saw Blaine derping around Rachel Berry's basement, and it takes you five fucking years break up and get back together and get your rainbow dust all over everything and then you finally pop out the ball and chain and it's on the Brooklyn Bridge? Jesus, Hummel, just get Channing Tatum to marry you under a waterfall while you're at it."

Her tirade ends with an epic eye roll. Kurt fights the urge to compete with one of his own.

"Is that all, Santana?"

"Not if you give me more of that attitude, Richard Simmons," she snaps, but the smile doesn't leave her face. "God, Berry's gonna flip a shit when she finds out this happened and she wasn't here. Wait-you didn't tell her and not us, did you?"

"No, I did not," Kurt huffs. "And she can flip anything she wants, it's my proposal and I'm not going to spend an hour searching her rehearsal schedule for a single spare night when she could deign to join us."

"_Your proposal_, eh? Look who got him a man and grew a big ol' pair," Santana chortles. Kurt does roll his eyes then, but he can't seem to stop smiling, he really can't, and a second later Quinn is back on solid ground and hugging Kurt as hard as she can, which frees Santana up to go verbally assault Blaine with her own peculiar form of love.

"Congratulations, honey," Quinn says in his ear, and Kurt presses his face into her shoulder.

"I was terrified," he tells her in a quiet voice, and her fingers scratch gently at the back of his head.

"I know. But you did it, and that's what counts." It is so weird, _so weird_, when he thinks about it—after all, this is Quinn Fabray, the girl who used to fondle her little gold crucifix while throwing the word _faggot _out into the McKinley hallways, who sneered when Kurt was still pulling dumpster garbage off himself before homeroom. And now here she is. And here he is. And here is what it all has led to.

"Yo Hummel!" Santana calls, and he turns to see her standing with an arm around Blaine, whose face is shining with the world's most beautiful and derpiest grin. The glint of silver on his left hand is like a lighthouse beacon, drawing Kurt's senses to a sharp feeling of safety and comfort and pride. "I have a request for permission, and you know how much I _hate_ that."

"What up, Snixx?" he asks, not caring whatever it is that she wants because he just got engaged, he'd let her take scissors to his closet if she asked.

(That is a blatant lie.)

"I may or may not have gotten the big moment on Instragram," she says, a devilish grin slowly sliding across her face. "And if you two sign off, I would be honored to break the news across the interwebs via Twitterbook. Only if you're cool with it, but I mean, come on, if _I_ Tweet your marital bliss then people might actually take it seriously."

"Better safe than sorry," Quinn adds with a giggle. Kurt rolls his eyes and takes the phone Santana is offering him: immediately his heart seems to clench into a fist and then explode just as quickly, a blast of emotion in his chest, because there it is on camera—him kneeling, box in hand, biting his lip and looking up at Blaine, who is so beautiful in the light from the Bridge and the city, whose face is so dear and so soft and so familiar, who in that exact moment was deciding that he wanted to be with Kurt and only Kurt for the rest of—

Arms are going around Kurt's waist, strong and warm, and without thinking he relaxes back into Blaine, his back molding up against his boyfriend's—his _fiancé's_ warm chest. Blaine hums in his ear and squeezes him close. "I say let her do it," he whispers hoarsely, and his voice makes Kurt's knees shudder. "I want everyone to know right now, as soon as possible, that you're mine."

Kurt hands back the phone without looking or caring, swivels in the protective loop of Blaine's embrace, and looks the love of his life—he can finally say that now, because life is up and running in a way it's never been before—right in the eye.

"I always have been."

"Right back at you," Blaine murmurs, and it's not dialogue by Nicholas Sparks or William Shakespeare, but it's theirs and it's them, and the kiss that follows is just that as well.

Theirs.


	2. And Then

**A/N: **Shameless fluff/makeouts/teeny bits of smut/the works. I kind of don't really know where this came from, but Glee fanfic is my most reliable form of distraction therapy and if it results in massive sagas of Klaine feels THEN SO BE IT. I really really really wanted to expand on this headverse. Like so much. Because I don't know, something about Quinntana/Klaine in New York just gives me feels all up and down the everything.

* * *

**_June 19_****_th_****_, 7:24 p.m. _**_Santana Lopez posted a photo to her timeline._

"looks like someone finally manned up and did the damn thing. hugs & kisses to my favorite pair of sparkly queers—klainegagement 2016!"

**_137 people like this._**

**Tina Cohen-Chang: **WHAT

**Tina Cohen-Chang: **WHAT

**Tina Cohen-Chang: **WHAT

**Tina Cohen-Chang: **WHAT IS THIS THAT HAS HAPPENED HERE

**Mercedes Jones: **! congratulations my sweet boys! ur both too fab to live J

**Michael Chang: **Holy crap! Way to go, Kurt! Mucho congrats to you guys!

**Tina Cohen-Chang:** I am trying to call you **Blaine Anderson** but your phone is off you jerk pick up the phone

**Tina Cohen-Chang:** wait also congratulations I love you both blah blah blah, I'm not a bitch guys I'm just crying and stuff right now okay

**Joe:** God bless you both!

**Sam Evans: **DUDES.

**Sam Evans: **DUDES.

**Sam Evans: **As a little green man once said, "do or do not, there is no try." Kurt you fucking did and you fucking rock and Blaine, my brother, Im not gonna say I told you so but DUDES.

**Brittany S. Pierce:** Lord Tubbington already told me this would happen because he has the gift of prophecy but you guys are still so cute. Like the faces of the friends I make with Rice Krispies and Lucky Charms

**Brittany S. Pierce: **I like the shooting stars best for eyes

**S.** **Beiste:** You boys have so much to be proud of and you have made us all very proud yourselves. Congratulations, never give up and keep your heads in the game! Hummel and Anderson = MVPs

**Wes Montgomery:** On behalf of past, present, and future Warblers, CONGRATULATIONS to you both!

**Trent Nixon:** YOU. ARE. BOTH. LEGENDS. CON. GRAT. U. LA. TIONS.

**David Thompson: **Two things: congratulations from me as well, and Wes I will take my payment in cash, please, clean bills, ASAP.

**Trent Nixon: **$?

**Wes Montgomery: **David what is wrong with you

**David Thompson:** Bets were made, Montgomery. Bets were won. And losers must pay.

**Michael Chang: **Is there any chance we can combine the Dalton-McKinley pools and winners get paid-out double?

**Ken WritinStahr Tanaka:** THIS IS A BEAUAUTIFUL LOVE STORY AND IT IS GOOD THAT ITHAPPENED FOR YOU, IT IS HJUST LIKE MY NBEW NOVEL FOR ADULT READERS "TORRID IN THE GYM: A MSYTERY ROMANCE FROM A ONCE GREAT COACH OF STAR ATHLETES" LINK ON MY PROF PLS READ

**Finn Hudson: **Burt is crying and he told me not to put that online but he is. So's Mom. So am I. I can't believe you're my brother Kurt and I can't believe—I don't know. Blaine, Kurt, you guys deserve to be happy and you deserve each other and I guess I'm proud of you or something.

**Finn Hudson:** sorry I just don't know what to say.

**Sugar Motta: **ILU ILU ILU ILU ILU OMG CONGRATZZZZ!*!*!*!*!*!

**Tina Cohen-Chang: Blaine Anderson** picked up his stupid phone and he's crying too, Finn, fyi. I think he got you

**Marley Rose: **wow oh my gosh! Congratulations you guys that's amazing! I'm so happy for you Blaine Jmuch love from the mckinley senior class!

**Ryder Lynn:** hot damn bros

**Emma Pillsbury-Schuester:** I am so deeply happy for the both of you! Maxine and I are sending you big big big hugs, Daddy is still in Washington and unfortunately has no FaceBook presence right now but I called him and he cried! He sends a hug also and he says to tell you both "it couldn't have happened to two better people, you earned the rest of your lives," I think you know what he means.

**Artie Abrams: **I see you holla at each other! my brothers in love! Congratulations Blaine and Kurt, masters of the arts of loverdom!

**Rachel Berry: **_via mobile:_ WHERE ARE YOU WHAT IS HAPPENING WHY AM I NOT THERE

**Rachel Berry: **_via mobile: _KURT HUMMEL WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING

**Rachel Berry: **_via mobile:_ WAIT WHERE ARE YOU SERIOUSLY

**Rachel Berry: **_via mobile:_ I AM SCREAMING IN REHEARSAL THIS IS NOT A DRILL

**Mercedes Jones:** translation: Rachel is happy 4 u

**Tina Cohen-Chang:** and she wishes you well

**SS:** I see that yet again, the cosmic forces of the universe have conspired to unite two perfectly healthy individuals who groinal appendages are evolutionarily meant for procreation, and who in a civilized world would be put out to stud, in an unnatural and vaguely irritating relationship that exists only to chafe society's tender under-arm fat wings. That being said, I suppose that if there are going to be gay heathens running around throwing glitter and locks of Neil Patrick Harris' hair on bonfires anyway, you two ladies might as well remove yourselves from the sperm-pantheon and be together. Godspeed, My Little Ponies.

**Jake Puckerman:** Nice! Wish you both the best, congratulations

**Santana Lopez:** _via mobile:_ Kurt and Blaine are busy being sloppy cuddle-whores all over our bread basket but they said to tell you all thank you and lots of love. they also said to warn everyone living on the east coast and above the mason-dixon line to put in ear plugs cuz there's gonna be some screamin and creamin tonight at chez AnderHum

**Quinn Fabray:** _via mobile:_ THEY DID NOT SAY THAT EVERYONE. I THINK YOU ALL KNOW THIS BUT JUST IN CASE. THIS IS PURE LOPEZIAN FABRICATION.

**Santana Lopez:** _via mobile:_ she says right after promising them we'll stay at **Fred Constantine**'s tonight and leave the loft for lovin bom chicka bom bom

**Artie Abrams:** can lopezian fabraycation be yours guys couple name

**Sam Evans:** SOLID man

**Fred Constantine: **Santana you tagged me and now I have to look at this whole string of comments you people are unhinged.

**Tina Cohen-Chang:** not unhinged so much as

**Artie Abrams: **from Ohio

**Noah Pucker Man: **E

**Noah Pucker Man: **N

**Noah Pucker Man: **D

**Noah Pucker Man: **G

**Noah Pucker Man: **A

**Noah Pucker Man: **M

**Noah Pucker Man: **E

**Noah Pucker Man: **I FUCKIN KNEW MANS

**Noah Pucker Man: **I FUCKIN HELD OUT HOPE

**Sam Evans: **Puck chill dude

**Jake Puckerman:** what the actual hell

**Noah Pucker Man: **IM A BELIEVER

**Noah Pucker Man: **IM A TRUE BLUE MOTHERFUCKER AND MY BOYS DID NOT LET ME DOWN OH NO

**Noah Pucker Man: **WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

**Finn Hudson: **It means a lot to him guys just let it happen.

**Tina Cohen-Chang:** Puck don't you dare do what I think you're gonna do

**Mercedes Jones: **Jesus take the wheel, we knew this day would come

**Noah Pucker Man: **MY BOYS NEED ME

**Michael Chang: **It's like watching a car try to hug a moving train

**Tina Cohen-Chang: **PUCK NO

**Artie Abrams: **he's earned it though

**Quinn Fabray: **_via mobile: _They put him on speakerphone, guys. The three of them are singing Dolly Parton in the middle of the restaurant and people are getting up and changing tables and Santana just started dancing so I think the appropriate reaction is to confiscate all phones. On behalf of myself and the state of New York, good night.

**Santana Lopez: **_via mobile: _OH YES I BELIEVE OH I BELIEVE

**Rachel Berry: **_via mobile: _WHY IS NO ONE CALLING MEEEEEEEEEE

_An hour earlier…_

"Hello, Hummel-Hudson residence, Burt speaking."

"Dad?" There's a tight, hysterical note in Kurt's voice that makes him sound like air leaking out of a balloon; he can practically hear his father frowning on the other end of the line.

"Huh? Kurt, is that you?"

"I don't know, how many other sons do you have?" A little more coherent, but he's still forcing his words out through a rictus of giddy euphoria that makes every muscle above the neck seize up. There's a grin on his face like Mexican Day of the Dead candy skulls, that's how much control he has over his body right now. "It's me, Dad."

"You okay, kid? You sound awful, did—aw hell, Kurt, are you freakin' out about the thing?" Kurt hears something splash and clink in the background, and a familiar voice asking something in fuzzy tones. "Nah, Finn, it's nothing, Kurt's got a—a dog."

"I got a _dog_?" Kurt splutters, and Santana, Quinn, and Blaine all give him looks like _Who's lost it here, you or your father?_ They're standing in a huddle at the foot of the bridge, Manhattan-side, baking in the summer heat. Kurt had begged for a few minutes to call his dad, because he couldn't wait a full subway ride to tell him, and Blaine agreed, because there is nothing under the sun he wouldn't do for Kurt right now.

"Sorry, sorry, hold on a sec…" He can hear his father leaving the kitchen and clomping away into the house—the Hummel-Hudsons are usually early eaters, Finn (now released from OSU for the summer) was probably washing dishes after dinner. "Okay, now listen, son. You just gotta not be nervous. Because then you're finished before you start. Go in there with the attitude and the confidence that this guy is gonna meet you halfway, and we both know he is, I mean come on, it's _Blaine—_"

"Um, Dad," Kurt tries again, his one hand sticky with sweat on the phone clamped to his ear. "Dad, it's—thanks for the advice, but it doesn't matter a whole lot now. Or ever again."

"What? What do you mean, it doesn't—"

Burt's sudden silence comes like a slap of cold water. Kurt can hear him breathing on the other end of the line, and in his mind's eye he sees his father's mouth half-open and his face glazing over. "Dad? You there?"

"You did it already?" Burt whispers, his voice half an octave higher than usual. Kurt bounces on his toes and reaches for Blaine's hand, squeezes it tight.

"I did, Dad, and—"

"_What did he say?"_

"What do you think?" Kurt answers before he can stop himself. An insane giggle rises to the surface before he can stop himself, and Santana rolls her eyes and mimes vomiting onto the street. Kurt sticks his tongue out at her, and then he notices that all he's getting on the phone is silence. "Um, Dad? You there?"

"I don't know what the hell to think Kurt this isn't just some joke crap I mean this is come on what the hell did he say?" Burt says all in a rush, and suddenly Kurt understands that this is no different. This marriage proposal is exactly like the Defying Gravity sing-off, and his first prom, and his NYADA application, and Vogue: his Slim-Jim-loving, trucker-hat-wearing, carburetor-expert, acid-wash-appreciating father is on his side so completely that it's insulting to make light of it, his loyalty strong as iron and deep as the bone. Burt doesn't care that his son is doing everything in a way that is strange to him, he doesn't care that Kurt's milestones have to do with fashion magazines and performance schools and men in the tradition of women, he doesn't _care_ because he loves Kurt more than he could ever love the Story of a Perfect Straight Son, and he wants Kurt to be happy with all the strength he has. Burt Hummel, of Lima, Ohio, is right there, breathless and waiting, for Kurt to tell him that he's getting married to a man with hazel eyes and strong arms—and Kurt has the sudden urge to burst into tears and reach out across several states to embrace his father.

Instead, he swallows around the lump in his throat and says, "He said yes, Dad. Blaine said he would marry me, we're—we're going to get married."

"Oh—oh holy hell, Kurt, oh my God—he did? You're sure?" Burt gasps. Kurt raises an eyebrow automatically.

"Um, yes, I'm sure…I mean, he said—"

"Did he say it, like, clearly? There's no, you know, no confusion, he definitely said yes and it's all set and you, you're understanding this right, right?"

"Dad—"

"Because the last thing you want in this kind of situation is a mix-up, Kurt, swear to God, it's going to be hell for you if—"

"No, I promise you, he agreed in no uncertain—"

"Did you double-check? How'd you ask the question? You didn't rush, made sure he heard all the words—"

"I said it as clearly as I could, Dad, it's not like I proposed using Morse Code—"

"Hey, Burt," Blaine says smoothly, flipping the phone out of Kurt's hand before he has time to react. "This is Blaine, I hope you're doing well, love to you and Carole—just wanted to let you know that Kurt did an excellent job of getting his point across, and when I said yes, I knew what I was getting myself into." He smiles at Kurt, skin glowing a little in the light from the corner bodega, and Kurt stops being annoyed with his phone-snatching and just falls in love a little more. "I know _exactly_ what I'm getting into."

Blaine pauses and listens for a moment, while Kurt pointedly ignores Santana and Quinn cracking up; then his smile turns into a massive Cheshire cat-grin and he hands the phone back to Kurt, mouthing, "Good to go."

"Thank you," Kurt mouths back, and then returns the phone to his ear just in time to hear a patented Burt Hummel War Whoop, usually only encountered during Ohio sports teams' victories and particularly competitive rounds of Go Fish. "So you're satisfied?"

"_You did it!_ My boy did it, all _right_! Kurt, I am so proud of you, I can't even—if your mom was here she'd—my son is a _man_, he brought it on home, congratulations, son, my God—_Carole! Finn!_ Kurt, can I tell 'em, you just gotta let me tell 'em right this second—"

Kurt thinks he agrees, or at least he tries to say, "Of course," but it's kind of hard to tell if it comes through or not, because the fact is that tears are suddenly flooding his eyes and his throat is tight with joy again but a different kind of joy, something less wild and much older, an echo from the history that he has all but thrown out, stowed away somewhere in a back room of his heart.

And now as his father continues to babble over the phone and Carole and Finn's voices fade in from the background, and the girls have stopped laughing because they can see what's on his face, and they move closer to put light hands on his shoulder, and then Blaine is there in all his solid, comforting warmth—now, Kurt lets that history in for a moment, and it thread its way through the familiar fabric of the life he has come to love.

_"Kurt? Kurt, what's wrong?"_

_"Nothing," Kurt says hoarsely, forcing himself to smile as he does so, because if his face is smiling while he talks on the phone then maybe the full force of his misery will get scrambled and diluted over the line. "Every—everything's fine…"_

_"Do you need help?" Blaine asks in a quiet voice. Kurt swallows and closes his eyes. The boys' bathroom smells like cleaning solvent, sneaker gum, and the sickly-sweet chemical tang of the grape slushie dripping down his face and onto his two-hundred-dollar trousers. Help? He is so far past help. He needs surrender. Or armageddon._

_"No, I'm okay. I just—I—wanted to call and say hey." Kurt hears a door slam and a male voice shout something from a ways away. Dalton has so many beautiful empty rooms, so many spaces for people to hide away in—except at Dalton, no one needs to hide. No one needs to pull a muscle looking over their shoulders for marauding football players with slushies in hand. At Dalton, there are only uniforms and uniformity, an anonymous safety that Kurt daydreams of in the peaceful hours between being shoved into lockers and tossed into dumpsters._

_Of course, what he mostly daydreams about is the boy with the voice, and the shiny black hair and the crazy-sweet smile that makes Kurt's stomach flip even in memory—and he's been doing a lot of remembering ever since he met Blaine. It's not like his crush on Finn, which was all mooning and admiration and a kind of blind, fluttering awe of the masculinity he didn't want and yet craved, the stereotypical manhood that he knew would make his life easier and yet bored him silly when he considered actually living it. Blaine is smaller than Finn, lighter, quicker, a pop melody with weird and desperately attractive undertones of something else, and Blaine makes him feel—well, it's not quite clear yet, but whatever it is, it's really hard to feel it without losing his breath._

_"Sorry, it's a little noisy in here, rehearsal is about to start," Blaine apologizes. Kurt pictures him standing by the common room window with his leather schoolbag, triangular eyebrows knit with concern. "You don't sound too good, man. Did something happen?"_

_"Just…no," Kurt sighs, backing off from the urge to spill his guts. The slushie is beginning to dry on him, and he needs to start hacking off the paste of artificial coloring and fructose before it cements itself to the fabric. Also, he's pretty sure that if he starts talking about everything, about the bullying and Karofsky and the daily hell he's living, then the waterworks will start and Blaine will be horrified and never text him again, much less take his random calls in the middle of the school day. "How's Warbling?"_

_"Well, we're starting a new number today. It's a Ke$ha song, which no one's really happy about, but Wes had a thing and then David had a thing back and Thad's girlfriend just broke up with him and—it's a long story, basically yours truly is going to be telling a school full of randy teenage guys that they should have kept it in their pants and not to kiss and tell," Blaine huffs, and Kurt can't help but hiccup and giggle a little. "Just one of the many pleasures of serving with the Warblers. How about you?"_

_"It's going okay here…I don't know what songs we're doing, but my friend Mercedes is eating a lot of tater tots." Okay, wow, literally nothing stupider or more random could have come out of his mouth. Kurt leans his head against the mirror and wishes for swift and painless death while Blaine chuckles uncertainly in his ear._

_"That…sounds fun," he says, and then Kurt hears another incoherent call from the other end. "One minute!" Blaine hollers, and then he's back, speaking low and warm in Kurt's ear. "Listen, I gotta go, but whatever's going on over there, don't let it get you down. You're better than every single one of them, Kurt, and if nothing else gets you through, then hang onto that. They're angry and they're violent, but that doesn't make you any less strong. I wish…" He pauses for a moment. Kurt imagines him biting his lower lip, that heartbreaking Bambi-eyes look on his face. "I wish being strong were enough to make it hurt less."_

_"Thank you," Kurt whispers. He doesn't quite believe Blaine—if strength is wearing a slushie as an involuntary accessory with every outfit, then the world has written some new logic while his back was turned—but it helps to hear. And it helps to know that any one of Blaine's wishes, however passing and small, concerns him._

_"Any time, dude. Call me after your rehearsal ends, if you want. Maybe we can get coffee again this weekend?"_

_"Yeah. Thanks. That—that would be nice."_

_"Okay. You can do it, Kurt. Oh, and if that guy—the one who, like, threw me into a fence—"_

_"Karofsky?"_

_"Yeah, if he tries anything like, you know, like he did, you can tell me. You're not alone, Kurt. I'm not going to let you be."_

_"…okay." A long moment of silence, and then Blaine coughs, makes a little "uhm, m'kay" noise, and the line goes dead. Kurt stands there, staring at himself in the mirror, face burning—but not, surprisingly, from anger or embarrassment. Something else, warm and frightening and too good to be true, is lighting him up from the inside, and for the first time in a long time, Kurt recognizes his reflection through the purple gunk splashed across his face._

Dinner is…well, it definitely happens, but Kurt can't for the life of him remember anything about it beyond the glorious moment when a sobbing Noah Puckerman led their table—with the exception of Quinn, who couldn't seem to decide whether to be mortified or deeply amused—in a heartfelt speakerphone rendition of "I Believe," during which several patrons got up and left the restaurant and most of the others clapped at the end.

(It's always been equal parts unsettling and touching, Puck's intense investment in his and Blaine's relationship; after years of drunken texts about how beautiful their children's souls will be and the occasional Facebook video tribute, Kurt has finally decided to just accept that which he cannot change and give thanks that Puck is more concerned with safeguarding his relationship than throwing him onto piles of trash.)

But everything else is kind of a blur of Blaine's body leaning against his, Blaine's chin nestled on his shoulder, a glint of silver on Blaine's left hand. Blaine humming a nonsense tune in his ear. Blaine giggling when Santana and Quinn started fighting about which flavor of wedding cake they should pick. Blaine stroking his knee under the table. Blaine, everywhere he turns, everything he feels, the here and the now of his universe.

It starts like halfway through dinner: up until that point, he's been wearing the fuzzy-warm-fuzzy goggles and everything around him has just been really awesome and cool and interesting and every once in a while he gets the urge to do a little pirouette _en pointe_. He and Blaine are being ridiculous, pawing at each other and grinning like mental patients, awash in the novelty of their new reality. Santana and Quinn tolerate them—in fact, Kurt is pretty sure they're enjoying themselves too, judging by how many SnapChats Santana is taking of him and Blaine kissing each other's knuckles—and the waiter immediately sees that there's cause for celebration and brings them a bottle of wine without even being asked (Blaine never gets carded, he's too good-looking).

And then at some point, in the middle of the drinking of wine and the singing and Quinn ordering a fondue plate for all of them, Kurt starts to lose interest. Because it just kind of occurs to him: he's getting married._He's getting married_. And Blaine is too. _And they're doing it with each other_.

Even though he still can't seem to think about it in terms beyond a second-grade reading level, the newest development in Kurt's life is getting him pretty hot and bothered.

The upshot is that Kurt couldn't become less interested in non-Blaine-related things if he tried, and when the girls finally do part with them for the night and head off to Santana's classmate's apartment in Chelsea, he has to actively check his urge to grab Blaine and pin him against the nearest wall. Blaine flags a taxi with ease—that's kind of a superpower of his—and steps back politely before opening the door for Kurt, every inch the gentleman. Which of course means that the red-hot second they're both wedged into the backseat, Kurt has to lunge at Blaine and kiss him hard enough that his head hits the half-open window pane with a resounding _thunk_.

"Mmmph—Kurt—wait a sec—" Blaine gasps, barely managing to surface for air before Kurt recaptures his mouth and cups the side of his face with a strong, urgent grip. He's a little less steady than he would be without the glasses of red wine, but what he lacks in coordination, he makes up for with vigor and pure, unadulterated passion. They pull at each other and slide back across the vinyl seat cushion, the armrest digging into Kurt's back as Blaine drives him into the opposite door. Blaine's mouth is hot and eager and Jesus Christ, he still tastes a little like chocolate fondue; Kurt moans softly and inhales when Blaine's teeth drag across his lower lip, sugar-sweetness and dusky heat and a hint of detergent from Blaine's sweat-damp shirt swirling around his brain.

"Where to, fellas?" says a husky, Queens-accented voice, and Kurt remembers that cabs usually come with drivers. Blaine breaks away from his mouth, although Kurt is still snugly sandwiched between his body and the door. The driver, a salt-and-pepper-haired man with huge, bushy eyebrows, is looking back at them over his shoulder, apparently completely unperturbed by two young men violently kissing in his back seat. A couple years ago, Kurt would have been horrified with himself, or at least deeply embarrassed; but since arriving in New York, he's learned from experience and from numerous instances of hearsay that there are much worse things to be found in a New York cab than a couple of horny people with all their clothes on and no narcotics of any kind on their person.

Blaine is stammering out their address and the cab is moving towards the swooping lights of the Brooklyn Bridge far off in the distance, and Kurt pulls his boyfriend-fiancé-whatever-they-are back towards his mouth and tries to pretend that he'll never have to let go.

"I love you," he murmurs as Blaine runs a hand down the length of his spine. Warm, callused fingers slide across the top of his jeans and gently press one of the dimples at the small of his back. "I love you so much. Blaine, I really, really—"

"Kurt, do not take this the wrong way, but I am begging you to shut up now," Blaine hisses, his grip tightening around Kurt's waist as he pushes back and yanks Kurt forward at the same time, taking his space, all of it, surrounding him in this cramped backseat. Kurt tries to respond, because he can't stand to let Blaine have the last word here, but it's really really tough to formulate a sentence when Blaine's body is so close and so hot and his hand is roughly stroking the skin just below Kurt's waistband.

"Just—_oh_—because you agreed to m-marry me doesn't mean—God, Blaine—doesn't mean you can talk to me like—"

Blaine kisses him quiet and Kurt lets him, he barely even knew what he was saying, and there must be a stopping point here—for the sake of decency and respect for others, at the very least—but he physically cannot keep his hips from jerking upwards against Blaine's thigh, pressure pressure pressure that glows deep-summer-hot in the pit of his stomach. Blaine's hands are sliding down, over his ass and under, up, around to his inner thighs, over the front of his groin and his twitching abdominal muscles and back to his waist, and Kurt buries his face in Blaine's neck so that his moan is a little bit stifled, a little bit quieter. Blaine turns his head and mouths at Kurt's hair and the back of his neck, panting; they rock together, tangled in the back of the cab, and then they pull apart the slightest bit and kiss like they're trying to draw blood.

God, may it always be like this, and when it isn't, may this never be too long forgotten.

_"Can't sleep?"_

_"What does it look like?" Santana says without looking up from her computer; Kurt rolls his eyes and pads past her in his sock-feet, ducking around the other side of the kitchen-island to get at the refrigerator. The clock on the oven reads 1:35 am, and even though his alarm is set to go off in five hours, Kurt can't seem to get his brain to shut up, so he's made his way to the kitchen in the hopes that a little late-night snack will quiet the buzz. He opens the door and searches for something tasty hidden among Rachel's wheat-grass nuggets and Quinn's unfortunate attempt at meatloaf, finally locating a Tupperware half-full of steamed garlic-cauliflower (also made by Quinn; her track record for delicious/tragic is usually about 80%-20%, not bad for a girl who graduated from Yale before she learned what a colander was). He pops the top off and starts to munch on cold florets, turning around in time to see Santana put the finishing touches on her paper and close the laptop perhaps a little too hard._

_"Careful, I know for a fact you can't buy a new computer if you beat up the old one," he says, instinctually dodging a flick to the ear as he slides onto the chair beside her. Santana huffs out a frustrated breath and sweeps her hair back with both hands, eyes fluttering shut. She's wrapped in an old bathrobe of Blaine's, blue terrycloth, just the right amount of insulation for the lingering chill of March. Kurt, on the other hand, is shivering a bit in his thin cotton pajama pants and t-shirt; it's not his fault, though, because he sleeps with Blaine Anderson, the real-life Human Torch, and after five minutes of spooning with that guy you practically need to strip naked to avoid the sauna-effect._

_(Not always a negative, but still.)_

_"I swear to God, this orgo class is going to kill me. I should just drop out and let people take pictures of my cooch for a living."_

_"Ew. Santana, that man was not making a serious offer."_

_"Dunno, he seemed legit."_

_"He seemed homeless and crazy and he was yelling at you from a storm drain."_

_"You're just jealous no one wants to give you a thousand bucks for a shot of your dick," she mumbles, drumming her fingers idly on the countertop. They've been living together for three and a half years now, and affectionate bickering has become something between an autonomic bodily function and an art form. "Hey, Kurt?"_

_"What's up?"_

_"Do you ever think maybe—" She stops mid-sentence, eyes unfocused as her tapping fingers still against the scuffed Formica. "I mean, could this really be it?"_

_"Could what be what?" he asks with a hint of concern. Kurt has seen her stressed, he's seen her angry, he's seen her homicidal, but it's not often that Santana Lopez appears philosophical. Perhaps winter is coming._

_(Metaphorically and referentially, because he knows it's March, and wow his brain really is having trouble shutting up tonight.)_

_"I just…like, I've been sitting here writing this fucking paper, and it's so aggravating that I'm this close to cutting one of you guys in your sleep just so I'll have an excuse not to finish, except that I actually love this stuff and it's really interesting and I like doing it and also I love my girlfriend and things. Are. Real."_

_A long pause stretches out between them, and Kurt racks his brains for the appropriate emergency response here; unfortunately for him, they do not keep dopamine around the house._

_"O…kay," he begins cautiously, being sure not to make any sudden moves. Santana, oblivious to his discomfort, begins to chew on her hair._

_"I mean, none of this stuff seems like it's going to change any time soon. And that would be cool with me because I'm happy as fuck, but Hummel—Kurt—I just want to be sure that, like, I'm seeing everything the right way. Like we're not headed for some massive crash and I don't notice because—whatever, I be stupid. But we're not. I'm not…right?"_

_Kurt finally, finally catches her eye. They look at each other, a middle-of-the-night awareness creeping over them, and he reaches out and pulls her hands out of her long black hair, laces their fingers together._

_"No, Chiquita, I don't think so."_

_"You sure? 'Cause maybe you be stupid too," she suggests with all seriousness. He squeezes her hand slightly and shrugs._

_"My dad has had a heart attack, cancer…my mom died in a car accident when I was eight…Blaine cheated on me, and remember when I nearly fucked up that photoshoot at work last year? Like, that little mistake that could have gotten me fired? Shit happens, Santana. Lives change really quickly. We both know that."_

_"Brittany and me…" she says softly, and Kurt moves closer, pressing up against her side. She rests her head on his shoulder automatically. "I just keep remembering how happy she made me…like, high school has been over for years and I wonder if—I wonder what happened to all the things I was sure of then. I knew I was going to be famous, I knew Brit and I were going to die together in a Playboy mansion for cougars or something, I knew I'd finally beat the crap out of Kim Kardashian and take her wig…and now what the fuck is all this? I'm almost halfway done with college and y'all are graduating this year and Quinn…Quinn is my…I mean, Jesus Fuck, how'd we get here?"_

_"I don't know," he says truthfully, and kisses her forehead. She sighs and relaxes onto him a little more. "But were you sure of anything that you don't have now?"_

_"Well, I sure as fuck don't have an MTV show or a dermatology clinic named after me, if that's what you mean."_

_"No. No, it's not," he says with a snort. Santana shrugs._

_"I guess I thought we'd always love each other. Like you and Blaine, or Rachel and the giant monkey-king."_

_"You and the tiny monkey-queen seem to be doing okay," Kurt replies, and Santana giggles before she can stop herself._

_"Shut up…but yeah. Yeah, we're…she's a perfect goddamn bitch, you know what I mean? Mind you, she's still working on the whole dyke thing. I'm getting her a box set of The L Word for her birthday."_

_"Oh, whatever, Santana, with your 'dyke thing,' you stuck-up lipstick lesbo."_

_"What! Lady Hummel, you better not be saying what I think you are."_

_"I'm just saying, I might wear shirts with lace occasionally, but only one person in this loft owns and can actually walk in seven-inch heels."_

_"…when have you been trying to walk in my pussy-stompers?" she growls, eyes narrowed. Kurt goes for an immediate redirect of topic._

_"So, if I'm getting this right, you're flipping out because shit happens? Because life goes on past your high school diary? Pardon me, but that's a little weaksauce for Auntie Snixx." Santana still looks miffed about the heels comment, but the urge to continue talking about herself proves too strong, and she returns to the train of thought with a wave of her hand._

_"I know. And yeah, I have people I love and who love me, and I'm doing what makes me happy and shit, and Rachel Berry is still annoying but I can deal by now."_

_"So…what's wrong?"_

_She pulls away from him, swivels so they're face to face. Kurt looks back at her and for a second, the four years since they were really just kids—four full, long, incredibly complex years—seem to fade away, and they might well be Lima losers again, unsure of anything but the need to become something else._

_"So is this really it?" she asks, and he finally realizes what she means._

_"For the moment," he replies. Santana frowns, ducks her head, then looks back up at him with dark eyes. A long moment passes, and at the end of it they're back where they were before—still freaked out sometimes, still unsure, still struggling, but with years of strength and understanding that had never been there to buoy them through troubles in an insular Ohio high school. They're grown up, if not adults; people, if not themselves quite yet._

_"Give me some of those," she whispers, and he offers the Tupperware of cauliflower without a word. They chew without words for a couple minutes, and then Santana abruptly slides off her seat and pulls the tie on her bathrobe tight. "Okay, brain-fart time over, sleepy-time now. Thanks for talkies."_

_"Always," he says with a smile, and she half-returns it before retreating behind the hung-sheet partition that forms her and Quinn's little enclave. Kurt sighs and starts to rinse out the Tupperware in the sink, deliberately shying away from the thoughts tugging at him. He's got too much to think about already. Existential crises à la Lopez are a back-breaking straw._

_When he slides into bed a few minutes later, any cognitive analysis grinds to a halt as Blaine yawns in a distinctly kitten-like manner and wraps a warm, hard arm around his stomach. He pulls Kurt close, big-spooning like a boss, and Kurt lets himself nestle in automatically._

_"Midnight snack?" Blaine whispers, half-awake; Kurt snuggles back into him and grabs his hand tight, pulling their woven fingers against his lower stomach._

_"Something like that," he replies, and then they're both asleep again._

_That was the first night Kurt thought about what it meant to come from somewhere, the first time he started trying to tie his past to his present. And now that the future seems to be becoming a whole new thing, the chain of events seems to kink and complicate itself, twisting into a refracted spiral, the logic of which Kurt is struggling to understand—and yet, despite his inability to grasp the whole, he's finding it massively difficult not to be purely and utterly thrilled by the parts._

"Ymmtmffmmrbrrm."

"Excuse you?" Kurt mumbles, his fingers working idly at a handful of Blaine's sweaty curls. With a gentle tug, he lifts Blaine's face up just enough so that he's not speaking directly into the bare skin of Kurt's stomach.

"I said you taste like coconut," Blaine says, and as if to illustrate his point he lowers his head again and presses first a kiss, then the soft pad of his tongue, then another kiss to Kurt's bellybutton. Meanwhile, Kurt is taking a moment to figure out exactly how to move forward from that statement, so while he would usually squirm from the slight ticklishness of it, he just kind of lies back and lets Blaine nuzzle over him while he runs "coconut" and "my fiancé (wow) is a weirdo" through his mental filing system.

It's three a.m., and the night has gotten even hotter—both inside and out of the loft. Between the cab ride home (at the end of which Kurt tipped the driver twenty-four-dollars-worth of guilty conscience) and now, they've worked each other up and down and over and under, beginning with that frantic, be-all-end-all pace, up against furniture, fingernails raking over skin and gripping and grasping that will leave dark bruises the next day, volume a non-issue because caring has become a non-issue; and riding the high down to slow, endless, heartbreaking sex, the kind of physical connection that brings pleasure from every level of body and soul.

They don't get to do that very often, because the loft is usually already occupied or about to be, or one or both of them is busy, or they're tired, or they're distracted, or it's just not the right moment. It takes time and effort, and once they find themselves there it's impossible to stop until they're truly and completely spent—which is how it's supposed to be, which is the whole point. Time slips by in puffs of reality, blowing like the humid summer wind through their awareness of each other, and by the time Blaine's shaking body tenses under his and one hot, slippery hand swipes helplessly back and forth across his ribs, by the time Kurt is not sure where he ends and Blaine begins and all he knows is that nothing else could be this good, ever, it's beyond him, it's beyond anything…by that time, when they finally, _finally_ collapse down onto the ruined bedsheets and commence to snuggle in exhaustion, Kurt is not even sure if he remembers what day it is or where he lives or how his name is spelled.

He just wants to always remember this.

Blaine, his interest evidently piqued by the discovery that Kurt is a man of many flavors, is nosing lower down his body now, drawing back from where he was lying between Kurt's legs and pressing his face against the diagonal line between Kurt's abdomen and upper thigh. Kurt watches him idly, admiring the curve of Blaine's neck and how the muscles on his shoulders stand out beneath the skin.

"Don't know what to tell you, babe. Guess coconut is just my default," he says as Blaine sucks a mild hickey beside the faint trail of hair on his stomach. A little snort of laughter makes him pinch at the skin, and he raises his head to meet Kurt's eyes.

"You're not using, like, coconut-flavored moisturizer?"

"First of all, Blaine, I don't moisturize my stomach, thanks very much, and second, why would I ever buy flavored moisturizer?"

"You bought that flavored body-paint once." Kurt blushes automatically at the memory—that was a fun Pride Day, in so very many ways.

"Yeah, but like—for normal life? Flavored moisturizer? After all this time, Blaine Anderson, you still fail to grasp the most basic elements of skin care," he says haughtily. Blaine's eyes flash, and a sudden chill runs up Kurt's spine as he recognizes that look, and what comes with it—what it does to Blaine when he wins, even a little.

Blaine ducks his head and runs his lips over the muscles near Kurt's groin, down to the warm places of soft hair and sweat, and Kurt didn't think he could get hard again after the marathon they fucked earlier, but apparently his body has other ideas, and even as he starts to lose his breath and twist under Blaine's touch, he hears Blaine chuckling deep in his throat.

"Grasp these elements," Blaine says huskily, and Kurt struggles to summon indignation through a haze of arousal. It's not easy, especially because Blaine has decided to go in for the kill and is currently using his tongue in a way that he knows, he _knows_ breaks Kurt apart stupidly fast.

"Your—your fault, okay, with your dumb face down there and you know what you're doing you dumb person," he manages, coherency falling prey to the brain-melting tease of Blaine's lips, and Blaine is laughing again, the vibrations sinking into Kurt's skin and making him arch up with a hiss. He's so tired, so worn out from before, heart and soul and self, but this just won't stop, this ability to want Blaine and take pleasure from his touch. Sex is another way that they communicate now, and moments like this, a slow and gentle mouth on him and Blaine's warm hands stroking his thighs, are how they share the feelings that don't come through well enough in words.

Blaine hums and sinks down, his throat flexing and the very, very softest press of his teeth a dull throb against Kurt's twitching cock. Kurt closes his eyes and lets himself breathe hard, lets his body respond and his blood rush, trying not to thrust forward but it's hard because losing himself in Blaine is natural, so natural…and God, his mouth, tight-wet-heat and the loft is already baking with the frenzy from earlier and the night outside and Blaine is bobbing up and down now, moving, trying to overload Kurt in that way that gets_him_ off, to know that he has Kurt by the strings and so in turn is completely Kurt's to have for himself. It's blindingly good and Kurt is trembling and wanting so badly to come but not yet, let it last a little longer, let them move together like this for another second, and another, and another.

And then it ends, and that last wave of pleasure is the one that sends him over the edge, gasping and coming like this is the first time tonight, like he hasn't lost count since they got home, and Blaine is swallowing and kneading Kurt's hip in one hand, and when Kurt finally comes down from the bright-white rush of it all, Blaine wriggles up and rubs his own erection against Kurt's thigh until Kurt takes him in hand and lazily strokes him, still half-conscious with post-orgasmic lethargy. Blaine comes in less than a minute, streaking hot and sticky up Kurt's arm and side, and whatever, these sheets are seriously and completely dead by now, they'll burn everything tomorrow and go buy themselves another set as a wedding present.

Oh, yeah. That's why all of this. Because they are getting married and it's to each other.

Blaine is panting beside him, their bodies glued together by come and sweat and sheer reluctance to move away. Kurt reaches out without thinking and wraps his arm and leg around Blaine, drawing him right up close, a boneless, sweat-soaked man with floppy black curls and burning-hot skin. Blaine molds himself against Kurt, arms looping under his neck and around his ribcage, legs gently scissoring one of Kurt's. They're a big, weary, unbelievably happy pile of body parts, and Kurt would rather fall asleep here and never wake up than ever leave.

"That part of you doesn't taste like coconut, by the way," Blaine whispers, and then breaks into full-on high-pitched giggles.

"Oh my God, _why,_" Kurt groans as he rolls his eyes and waits it out, praying that Blaine will calm down and become as sleepy as he is and they can cap off this perfect night by passing out together. But even as his laughter fades, a strange look comes into Blaine's eyes, and Kurt gets the feeling that the night isn't quite over.

"Sorry, sorry…um, Kurt…I, uh…"

"Say it, Blaine, you have like six seconds before I fall asleep on you." Blaine bites his lip and gazes at Kurt, his eyelashes dark and fanned across his tan skin.

"I didn't want to say earlier because—well, it wasn't the right time, there were other things to—but now—"

"_Blaine_."

"You beat me to it." He tenses up, like he expects some kind of reaction—except Kurt doesn't know how to react because he has no idea what Blaine is talking about.

"Excuse me? I beat you to what?"

"To…you know," Blaine whispers, and suddenly his hand is between them, silver ring flashing on the fourth finger, and Kurt's chest thumps with a sudden and ferocious beat.

"What?"

Instead of answering, Blaine is suddenly pulling away from him, climbing out of bed and heading to where his schoolbag has been gathering dust in the corner for the past couple weeks. Kurt props himself up on one elbow and watches as Blaine kneels, roots around in the bag, and then rises and heads back towards the bed, holding a—

_Oh my God._

The box is black, not blue, and square instead of rectangular, but it doesn't matter, it couldn't matter in the least, because when Blaine pops it open the only shape and color Kurt can register is the round gold ring wedged snugly into its little slot.

He can't breathe, he can't move, he can only stare endlessly at—at his engagement ring? At Blaine's plan, at the idea that he had thought was his alone to risk and to trust in, to have and to hold. At the future he had thought only he knew he wanted. Blaine babbling on the Bridge, taken by surprise—not, as Kurt thought, by the idea of a real life for the two of them, but by the same thundering shock that Kurt was experiencing now, the concept of being wanted by someone just as badly and for just as long as you yourself wanted them.

"It's gold, I know," Blaine says hoarsely. "I just thought with your skin tone and the way you usually accessorize…but it's okay, I can get another one, like an exchange or something to match—"

The rest is lost because Kurt is kissing him, naked bodies back together, his arms too small and weak to hold Blaine as tightly and as completely as he would like, but this'll have to do. A thank-you kiss, an I-do kiss, a my-God-how-did-I-ever-find-you kiss; and then Blaine is pulling away and grabbing his hand, and they're both crying as he slips the gold ring onto Kurt's finger and crosshatches the fingers of their left hands so that silver and gold come together, two little loops of bright light, and Kurt realizes that these two proposals—one on the Brooklyn Bridge in front of the world, one in an empty loft apartment without even their clothes to get between them—the events of the night do make sense now.

They are Real, and Right, and they are It.

_He could kiss other men, he could sleep with other men, he knows the world is full of the good and the sexy and the lovable but no matter what or who he would do, Kurt would always want to come back to Blaine at the end of the day. He wants to share everything with this person. He wants to fail for him and be foolish for him and let him see the bruises. He wants Blaine to be the one he's angry at, and the one he trusts with his awfulness. He wants Blaine's problems for his own, so that he can turn them around and give them back with less pain and a greater will to survive. He wants Blaine for himself, and let come what way._

_Kurt Hummel is never sure of what will come next. But for the first time in his life, he is sure that he won't have to meet it alone._


	3. All We Need Is This

My god, this headcanon is not only persistent, it is verbose. This is giant and super long and I DON'T KNOW HOW THAT HAPPENED. SORRY.

For those of you who need a refresher, Kurt and Blaine got engaged on the Brooklyn Bridge, Santana and Quinn are a couple, and I actually kind of like Isabel Bright, so whatever.

**Also: more Facebook stuff and New Directions shenanigans in the next installment. Hopefully.**

* * *

It's crazy.

That's Kurt's stance on the idea, and he's not backing down. Not "just-crazy-enough-to-work," not "crazy-awesome" or "crazy-brilliant," not the kind of crazy that Nikola Tesla or Marie Curie or the Wright Brothers used to invent science.

Letting Santana Lopez take charge of planning his and Blaine's wedding is just completely fucking crazy.

"You didn't even think about it!" she snaps when he says as much a week after the night they got engaged. Quinn's vegan lasagna has gone over very well for dinner, and Kurt has a portfolio to finish that he can do at the table while Quinn and Rachel and Blaine play Scrabble on the floor in front of the TV, and the temperature is below 90 degrees for the first time in weeks, and it would have been such a nice evening if not for Santana, who is standing at the kitchen counter, holding a beer and wearing her Cut A Bitch face. Usually Kurt knows to avoid this combination (preferably in an underground bunker somewhere) but _not this time_.

"I did think about it, Santana, and it took me almost a whole half of a second to decide that it's a totally awful idea." He crosses his arms and plants his feet firmly on the floor, staring Santana straight in the eye and ignoring the way Blaine, Rachel, and Quinn are all cringing like they think he's about to get a razor blade to the groin. "This wedding is mine, get your own."

"Oh for the love of God, you should be kissing my perfectly sculpted ass for even offering, Hummel," she says with a sneer, and takes a violent swig of her beer. When she'd first casually brought up this totally crazy and insane notion, Kurt had assumed she was joking; after he realized that she wasn't, he faced a very real dilemma of whether to be angry or confused or both and in which order.

"When the hell are you going to have time to plan a fucking wedding," Santana continues, pointing a red-painted finger at him, "_especially _a wedding that is as disgustingly fabulous as I know you're going to want it to be and still comes in under budget? Do you even know what goes into planning a wedding?"

"Do I even—I got my father married to Carole with _doves that shit sequins_! I know more about weddings than everyone who has ever been on Say Yes To The Dress, and _you_—"

"_I_ am out of school for the summer," Santana interrupts fiercely, and suddenly she's advancing on Kurt, striding out from behind the kitchen island and heading right towards him. Out of the corner of his eye, Kurt sees Blaine twitch like he's about to jump to his feet, and even in the heat of battle Kurt can still appreciate how sweet it is that his boyfriend would be willing to dive in front of a psychopathic Latina lesbian for his sake.

It's the little things that count.

"I am out. Of. School," she repeats, now so close to him that her breasts are bumping up against the front of his shirt like the bulkhead of a warship, and he can smell the tang of beer and the tomato-basil scent of lasagna mingled on her breath. "I have shit all to do except work at the bar, which is about thirty hours a week _less_ than you spend working for Vogue, and Blainey-boo has his stupid Christmas pageant or whatever—"

"It's an off-Broadway _revue_," Blaine splutters, but Santana's train never leaves the tracks.

"—so both of you are going to be all spazzed out and crying yourselves to sleep in a cloud of vanilla-scented candle fumes and whatever, I usually relish the opportunity to be reminded that everyone who is not me is weak and puny like a Smurf with both legs broken, but in this case I am not going to sit by and let you try to make your dream wedding happen when we both know that you'll be too busy and end up botching the whole thing like you botched that outfit with the kid gloves last Easter."

Kurt feels like someone has just rammed an ice pick down his spine. "_You said you would never talk about that. Ever."_

"I lied, Tweedledum," she says flatly, and not for the first time Kurt experiences a strong curiosity to see how hard one would have to yank Santana's hair before her scalp just peeled off.

"Well, whether or not you're a lying bitch, which you are, and whether or not I'm going to be too busy, which I'm not, there is _no way_ on this Earth that I am letting you come anywhere _near_ my wedding. There is absolutely good God damn way that—"

"Kurt, can I speak to you for a second?" Blaine suddenly peeps up. Tripping over himself just as he was gathering steam, Kurt loses valuable time trying not to swallow his own tongue, making it that much easier for Blaine to stand up, grab Kurt by the wrist, and drag him through the Privacy Curtain into their tiny makeshift bedroom.

"What gives!" he hisses, wrenching his wrist out of Blaine's grasp the second the curtain falls back behind them. "I was just about to shut the hellbeast down!"

"What if she's right?" Blaine says quietly. Kurt's mouth falls open, and he gapes at his boyfriend like Blaine told him that he'd joined a cult against the use of hair products.

"_Excuse me?"_

"Shhh, Kurt, I'm just saying, she's got a point." Blaine is unfazed by Kurt's astonishment, and continues speaking in an even and infuriatingly calm tone. "You're only getting more work to take home from the office, and I know you love it, and I know you want to do it, but it's exhausting as is, without planning some huge thing. And once I go into rehearsals I'll barely have the time to see you, let alone figure out how I'm going to marry you, and anyways I'm not good at that stuff like you are. But Santana—she may be a hellbeast, but you trust her, don't you?"

Kurt refuses to meet Blaine's eye, staring tight-lipped at the hanging grey curtain. Yes, all right, yes, he does trust Santana, at least he trusts her taste and her business smarts and her ability to get shit done for real. He's seen her mount some pretty impressive projects over the years, from the Bullywhips and Nationals routines to convincing NYADA's extension school to let her host an S&M/salsa-dance workshop, and truth be told, he's always admired the inhuman drive she seems to be able to muster out of nowhere (or, more likely, out of the flaming pits of Tartarus).

But letting her plan his wedding? For that matter, letting _anyone_ plan his wedding, when he's spent endless hours, probably a cumulative decade of his life, poring over wedding magazines and bookmarking designer tuxedos online and generally lapsing into elaborate fantasies about his breathlessly romantic marriage to the love of his life? Granted, the fantasies themselves have changed over the years—in his earliest constructions, the wedding cake had a pony centerpiece and both he and his betrothed were wearing sequined denim vests—but still. It's what he's always dreamed of. It's what he never even dared to hope for in reality until he met Blaine. It's what he's earned after a long and intense relationship that sometimes seemed doomed and sometimes seemed to be all that kept him going.

How could he possibly let it go?

Kurt doesn't realize that there are tears forming in his eyes until Blaine's hand comes up and brushes them away. He swallows around a lump in his throat and manages to look back at Blaine—his Blaine, who is standing there with an understanding smile, who has only ever wanted Kurt to feel good and safe and loved, who is reaching out and folding him into a tight hug.

"It's just—I've just wanted to do this for a long time," Kurt says hoarsely into the curve of Blaine's neck. He feels Blaine nodding against his jaw.

"I know. And I would never, ever ask you to give it up unless I thought maybe there's a chance you could be even happier than if you held onto it." He pulls back a little and cups Kurt's face with both hands. "It's up to you, babe. No matter what, I'm with you one hundred percent."

"Love you," Kurt murmurs, and Blaine kisses him softly.

"Love you too." He pauses for a moment, the pads of his fingers pressing against Kurt's temples. "What do you think?"

Kurt sighs and closes his eyes. He can hear Quinn and Rachel whispering outside in the living room, probably trying to calm Santana down—although strangely he doesn't hear her reeling off medieval punishments and Spanish curses, as she often does when challenged. It occurs to him, like a little lightbulb switching on inside his head, that maybe Santana wasn't trying to be an undermining, controlling bitch by suggesting that she take over his wedding. Maybe she was just trying to help.

"I don't know…I want to, I want to so much, but—it's true, I mean, summer shoots are starting up and I'm going to have to be out running errands and researching and stalking writers for their pieces and everything, Blaine, fuck everything, it's true." He bites his lip and blinks back another pricking tear. "But I don't want to give it up completely. It's our _wedding_. I want us to be part of making it happen, not just show up like pinch batters right at the end."

"Pinch hitters."

"WHATEVER, BLAINE, THAT IS NOT THE POINT RIGHT NOW."

"I know," Blaine says quickly, and it is a mark of how much Kurt loves him that he doesn't smack that smirking half-smile off Blaine's face. "I know it's not. But look, what about, like—what if you and I but mostly you kind of checked in and worked _with_ Santana to plan everything? Like, she looks around for stuff and does research and she can find everything, put it all in one place, and then we can discuss? And consider? And choose? So it's still really us, but we trust her to narrow down the pool beforehand. And to respect our veto, of course," he adds hastily, and Kurt knows that Blaine knows that Kurt was about to say something about the outfits and how the sky would open up and bleed flaming hail before he let Santana Lopez decide what he was going to wear on his wedding day.

"I don't know," Kurt says slowly, but he's turning the idea over in his head and it doesn't seem so ludicrous and offensive anymore. In fact, the more generous side of his brain is thinking that it might even be a relief not to have to trawl through endlessly vulgar decorations and color schemes and venues, that maybe a lieutenant to scout the terrain would make the actual blazing of the trail that much easier. He chews on his lower lip and looks at Blaine from beneath his eyelashes; Blaine smiles reassuringly and waits for Kurt to get there.

"Fine," he sighs eventually, rolling his eyes. "Let's go tell Santana Lopez that she can get her filthy, evil hands all over the beautiful celebration of our legally-recognized love for one another."

"Which reminds me," says Blaine, catching Kurt around the waist just as he turns to step back through the curtain. He draws him close, and Kurt's stomach jumps pleasantly when Blaine presses his mouth to his ear and gives the lobe a gentle nip. "Doesn't matter who plans the thing, it's still going to be you and me and nobody else."

"We're gonna get married," Kurt agrees, smiling as Blaine kisses the pressure point by his temple. "Just like grown ups."

"Psht. We're not grown ups. We're maturity-challenged."

"You, maybe. I pay bills."

"Bills equal adulthood?"

"If not bills, then what?"

"I don't know. Voting? Legal drinking age? Health insurance?"

"Nope. Bills."

"Speaking of which, there'll be a lot of those."

"You're worth it."

"Careful. You say that now, but when Santana wants one of us to jump out of a cake…"

"Mmmm. Cake."

"We should have a lot of cake."

"I knew there was a reason I was marrying you."

_If Kurt could pick any special night in the history of his life and make it last forever—and between the New Directions, New York, and working for the top fashion magazine in the world, he's got quite a few to consider—he would choose that night with Blaine, hands down._

_But unfortunately, such a choice is still just fantasy, and it's far too soon before Kurt finds himself slowly rising from a warm, feathery world of Blaine- and wedding-related dreams into the equally warm but somewhat stickier and sweatier embrace of his fiancé. The sun is spilling into their corner of the loft through the tiny sliver of window that peeps out behind the Privacy Curtain, and its rays are pretty much poking Kurt in the eye. He raises his head and does some sleepy reconnaissance: clothes on the floor, uncapped bottle of lube and a couple condom wrappers on the nightstand, someone's keys (he and Blaine have matching New York Mets keychains from that one time Isabelle gave them a pair of comped tickets she didn't want) on top of the dresser, a gold ring on his left hand—_

_Oh. Right._

_Kurt twists around carefully and looks down at his big spoon, who is actually sort of little. Blaine is doing that thing where he looks heartbreakingly beautiful asleep. His lips, parted slightly, are soft and rosy; the slope of his arm, from his shoulder to his elbow to his limp hand on Kurt's stomach, has an unearthly grace; his whole face is translucent and glowing, so deeply relaxed that he seems to shimmer between a flesh-and-blood person and one of Kurt's dreams. It also doesn't hurt that Kurt can see post-coital souvenirs all over Blaine's body, from the purplish-creamy hickies on his neck and chest to the thin red marks on his biceps from where Kurt's blunt nails had dragged him desperately closer last night._

_Mine._

_Kurt flexes the fingers of his left hand and watches the gold sparkle in the thin rays of morning sunlight. Man, he and Blaine have been together for five years and they still can't coordinate anything as simple as matching engagement rings. That's how it always is between them, really, an improvised and uneven kind of progress, where one of them bolts ahead and the other falls back, and they cross wires and mix things up and finally figure out that they each went so far in the opposite direction that they circled around and now they're back together, in some new and strange and wonderful place. The first time they had sex, the preparations for Kurt's departure and the subsequent catastrophe, the awkward escapades of getting back together—it's never simple between them, but that's okay, because if Kurt and Blaine had each other completely figured out then this would be about the most boring relationship on the planet._

_Kurt pushes his hair back, sighs, lies down again and tries to snuggle backwards against Blaine's chest. He can coax himself back to sleep, the daylight is new enough that Santana and Quinn won't be coming home any time soon, and there is nothing he wants more in the world right now than to stay close to Blaine, melting in the freakish and awesome heat of his body, feeling his heart flutter up against Kurt's spine and reminding himself always that Blaine is his in the most way now, mine mine mine. He closes his eyes and yawns, lacing his fingers through Blaine's floppy hand and pulling his arm tight around his waist. Blaine mumbles in his sleep, lips brushing Kurt's ear, and he's already starting to doze off._

_This time yesterday, he was Kurt Hummel, and that was all._

_Now he's Kurt Hummel and something more—something small and dark-haired and beautiful as the rising sun._

"Good afternoon, Worthen & Partners, how may I help you?"

"Hi, Janine, it's Kurt. Can you patch me through to Quinn?" Kurt says breathlessly as he power-walks down 5th Avenue, a coffee tray from Starbucks clutched in one hand and a portfolio case in the other, with the phone clenched between his shoulder and ear.

"Can do, sugar. Hold on a second—" Janine's voice cuts short, replaced by a tinny ringing. Kurt swears as he tries to rebalance his latte and narrowly avoids slopping it all over his shirt front when a woman in green pumps runs her elbow into his ribs. It's one o'clock and the lunch lines have started forming at the food trucks, crowding the sidewalks and prompting the taxis to honk endlessly as hungry office workers spill over into the street. Not a good time to be late for a meeting six blocks downtown.

"Quinn Fabray, state your business," says a clipped, familiar voice, and Kurt rolls his eyes automatically.

"Jesus, Quinn, you're an intern, not Donald Trump."

"Trump can suck my dick," Quinn says nonchalantly. "What's up, Kurty-cat?"

"Don't call me that."

"Don't have a name starting with K."

"God, sometimes I really understand why someone would kick your sassy pregnant ass out of their house."

"I'm hanging up now, Kurt."

"Wait! Wait, wait, I'm sorry, I need a favor." Kurt dodges a parcel of chattering Wall Street interns and speeds up, the large glass building he's heading towards now coming into view several hundred feet away.

"You need a favor? Good job bringing up the shameful trauma of my teenage years."

"I said I'm sorry! Listen, would you please tell Santana that you hate eggshell?"

"…_what?_"

"Eggshell. Like the shade."

"Kurt—"

"She keeps harping on these eggshell pumps for the ladies in the wedding party and true they're sleek yet conservative but honestly nothing that comes close to the ground should be eggshell, it just doesn't bode well, and I can't _say_ that to her because she'll just tell me I liked them last week, which I did, when I didn't realize that they weren't taupe, which I originally thought—"

"_Enough_." Quinn's voice is strung out on a thin line of exasperation. "I don't have time to plead your fashion cases to my girlfriend."

"But Quinn—"

"The whole point of the way you guys did this was that it was supposed to be _you_ and _her_, not me and Rachel and Carole and Francesca and Michael and Tony and everyone else with the bad luck to know you getting dragged into it!"

"I'm just trying to make my wedding beautiful," Kurt says, dropping his voice to a calculated whine. There's a slurp in his ear as Quinn takes a sip of coffee.

"Cry me a river, Kurt. It's a fucking Friday and I have a billion briefs to go through before lunch, I'll probably already have to stay past eight, I'm not calling Santana just to—"

"You don't have to do it now! Just, y'know, at some point. In the near future."

"FINE. Fine, Jesus Christ, you demanding little jerk, I bet you were a mosquito in another life and hopefully someone squashed you good." And with that, the line goes dead just as Kurt reaches his destination. He pushes through the glass front door and crosses the air-conditioned lobby at a brisk pace, taking no pains to hide a triumphant smile.

Much as it pains him to admit it, Santana's involvement has proven to be a saving grace in this whole wedding thing. As it turns out, Kurt seriously overestimated how much time he would have this summer for sitting around and basking in a recently-engaged glow; after the weekend ends and he goes back to work and Blaine's rehearsals kick into gear, things go rather unsettlingly back to normal. The news spreads and settles, everyone congratulates them, and then - life goes on.

Being engaged doesn't mean that Kurt's article edits get done any faster, or that his appraisals are any more thorough, or that the numerous men and women associated with who demand his daily babysitting become any less needy. The topic rarely appears in conversation, simply because it's so far from relevant to the little daily catastrophes and weary nighttime commiserations of his regular schedule. He still arrives home exhausted every night, and often falls asleep in a sea of papers. The idea of then, on top of everything else, having to slog through a wedding catalogue in which he would find three worthwhile flower arrangements amidst a truckload of floral atrocities, makes his head ache.

So having Santana pop up every week or so with a dozen options for him to choose from - color coordinations, flowers, music, registry (_PRESENTS_) - is a tremendous relief. It's like a treat, to break out of the stress and sweaty summer heat for just a moment and recall that he is actually engaged, that this whole marriage thing is for real.

Because it is, it is, _it is_-he and Blaine aren't just high school sweethearts anymore, they aren't just the boringly-monogamous college boyfriends, they are actually going to a legitimate old married couple (only unlike the last time Kurt began thinking of their relationship as such, they are going to keep having sex, lots and lots and lots of sex). The officiality of it, the seriousness of the ceremony that will be performed, hangs around the edges of his mind like a whiff of earthy perfume, and during these brief moments of consideration, he takes a deep breath and shudders with delight as chills go down his spine.

Santana's attitude about wedding planning is the same kind of crackling ferocity that he used to assume she reserved solely for drinking contests and curbstomping drunk fraternity homophobes. On the occasions when she has something to show him and Blaine, the two of them will find themselves being yanked viciously onto the couch and pinned there with a searing look, while Santana holds up a massive 3-ring binder and flips through transparent plastic sleeves filled with clippings and printouts. Blaine, usually sore from dance rehearsals and already out of his depth when it comes to this, will nod and mumble and watch Kurt for his cues; Kurt, on the other hand, is almost always able to hold his own and coolly negotiate with Santana, except for the rare moment when he'll second-guess himself - i.e. the eggshell pumps - and then desperately find a way to backtrack after the fact, usually by enlisting an outside party to address his concerns and help him avoid being called a "whiny garden gnome with sugar plums for balls."

The other great thing about Santana taking charge is that she knows how to be cost-effective; Kurt is the first one to admit that when it comes to financial self-control, he is somewhat lacking in the clothing and decoration departments. After speaking to Burt and Carole and Blaine's parents, they've agreed to go for "traditional, but within reason:" Santana seems to have interpreted this as a _carte blanche_ for her whimsy amidst the bargain basements and slashed-price deals of the matrimonial world. It pains Kurt to think of all the fabulous designer clothes and food and decorations that their limited budget deprives them of, but Santana has done such a good job hunting up diamonds in the rough that it's all he can do to calm his fluttering heart when he imagines himself wearing the sleek black tuxedo with the single-button, wide-pectoral cut and the notched lapels that appears circled in thick blue marker in the discount section of a wedding magazine.

This image is the one flashing through his head as he knocks on the black paneled door of the conference room he should have been in twenty minutes ago. With a deep breath and a roll of his shoulders, he banishes all thoughts of marital bliss and puts on his Professional Face, because that's what he has—one mask, then another, on and off, juggling Confident Kurt and Coy Kurt and Take-No-Shit Kurt, right up until he's done for the day and he gets to go home and be just Kurt, also known as Blaine's Kurt.

The real one.

_The first time they have sex in New York is great._

_They do what they haven't done since before they broke up—Valentine's Day, while fun as hell, featured a limited menu due to their lack of supplies (it's tacky to carry lube and condoms in your tuxedo pocket, regardless of the wedding-hookup cliché)—and Blaine, damn, Blaine upped his game. Say what you want about Sue Sylvester, but her aerobics classes give people the ability to flex muscles and bend joints that were previously undiscovered by science._

_And that's just Blaine; between constant dance classes, being forced to eat mostly vegan due to Rachel's totalitarian attitude about the kitchen, and a somewhat self-conscious three-times-a-week gym routine, Kurt's body has changed so much that Blaine absolutely insists on spending five whole minutes kissing his way up and down every square inch of it, getting to know it again, paying the attention and showing the tenderness that he didn't feel permitted to when they were "just friends." Kurt is a little embarrassed at first, because he knows some spots are slimmer and some muscles are larger and more defined, but still, it's his body, and just because Blaine has always loved it doesn't mean he might not find some part of it that is suddenly unsatisfactory or off-putting. But one look at Blaine, one moment of raw, bare connection between them, and every shred of self-awareness falls away; he's able to fall forwards into those warm olive-brown arms and let Blaine work him up and down until he's trembling and rolling through the hips and clutching at Blaine's hair with sweat-slick fingers. All night, and into the next morning, they are not parted from one another._

_It's great, and romantic, and feels so fucking good, and they don't talk._

_This is the first night Blaine moves into the loft. The second time, one day later during Santana's extension class at NYADA and Rachel's rehearsal, is just as good, if not better. Kurt takes the lead this time, bending Blaine backwards against the kitchen counter and rubbing up against him with one hand twisted around and working the taut, hot places of his body, until they're both going crazy, then roughly turning him over and shoving his jeans down to his knees, biting the back of his shoulder and pulsing with pleasure at the low, filthy noise Blaine makes when Kurt thrusts for the first time. _

_It's great then too. And they still don't talk._

_Third time, on the couch, in a wild hurry while Rachel runs out to get more cranberry juice and an onion. Blaine buries his face in Kurt's neck and ruts frantically and sucks a hickey so livid and wide that if Kurt weren't going blind with pleasure he would very put out. Their hands leave bruises on each other that show up by dinnertime, and every time Kurt feels a twinge of pain he smiles to himself._

_No talking then either._

_Fourth time—well, that's when things get tricky. Because it's not at home. It's at Monster, a little gay club that Santana discovered and where she's started dating a bartender. She takes them there one night, with their shitty fake IDs and a giddy rush of grown-up-fun. After two beers for Blaine and a kamikaze for Kurt, they start dancing hands on waists, smiling big, basking in the interested gazes of men who'll never get to do more than look; take a break, share another kamikaze, a shot of tequila each (Santana joins them and downs a double), and back to the dance floor, except this time it's less dancing and more loose, sweaty, open-handed groping, their hips slotting clumsily together and their harsh alcohol-breath hot on each other's lips._

_Blaine leans his forehead against Kurt's and runs his fingers over Kurt's biceps. His touch is thick and hot, fingernails dragging blunt marks up and down the skin. Kurt pulls him close and lets one hand ghost over the back edge of his jeans. Blaine shudders and laughs a little, kissing Kurt's chin. Over his shoulder, Kurt can see a couple guys, late twenties, well-dressed, whispering and looking him and Blaine up and down. One of them makes eye contact with Kurt, smiles, raises his glass. Kurt smiles back, turns his head and sucks a hard kiss under Blaine's right ear; the look on the man's face is almost, but not quite, as satisfying as the sharp hiss from Blaine. The music pounds, Kurt's palm is sticky against Blaine's lower back, and they're both drunk and horny and alive._

_Blaine pulls them outside without waiting too long, and shoves Kurt up against a lamppost, his kiss sloppy and his hips pushing insistently into the top of Kurt's thigh. Kurt gasps for breath, pushes Blaine back a little, tries to let the cool fall nighttime clear his head._

"_Hold…hold up a sec," he says hoarsely, blinking a drop of sweat out of his eyes. Blaine is right up close to him, smelling like booze and heat and the tang of salt. He seems to shimmer in the light from the streetlamp, half-flesh and half-possibility, there for the taking if Kurt is ready to reach out. All they have to do is stumble to the subway, keep the transit makeouts down below indecent standards, and then find their way up the stairs and into each other._

_Instead, Kurt says, "So are we both over it now?"_

_Blaine blinks, his eyes bright and a little unfocused. "What am I over—are what? Are we what, Kurt?"_

"_Y'know," Kurt mumbles, and a little portion of objectivity in his addled brain flickers with curiosity over just where the hell the rest of him is going with this introspective tangent, when he could be tongue-fucking his hot boyfriend in the West Village. "The whole break up. Me not talking to you, like enough, and you with—with some other guy, we're totally over it, right?"_

"_Kur…urt," Blaine says slowly, slurring disoriented, slowly coming down. He stops trying to climb Kurt like a jungle gym and moves back a step. "Over it?"_

"_I just want. To make sure. Because now everything is. And you're here."_

"_Huh?"_

"_I don't wanna guess about it." He feels unsteady now, panicked, like a kid who's started the car without knowing which pedal is the brake. "I don't wanna—because you cheated on me and I forgive you, I really so really really do, but I just—wanna make sure. That it's not a thing."_

"_How…could it be a thing?" Blaine asks, his voice small, his shoulders already slumping. Kurt puts a hand out without thinking, presses it flat against the damp fabric of Blaine's shirt, fingertips pressing into his clavicle. Blaine leans into the touch, but doesn't reciprocate. "I, I love you, and I'm sorry, and I don't know what else—"_

"_That's all." Kurt steps forward, his hand sliding down to pull reassuringly at Blaine's waist. "Just making sure that you're not still going to, like, try. And make anything up to me. No serenades. No sorry notes. No fight about bringing it—I mean, no bringing it up when we fight. You don't need to, ever, okay?"_

"_Kurt, I already—"_

"_Promise?"_

_Blaine's arms go around his neck, his forehead resting back on Kurt's. The air is humid and swimming with streetlight. People in tight clothing and severe makeup wash past them, New York's glamour children out to play. "Promise what?"_

"_That you won't try. To get something you already have." Trust, Kurt wants to say, I trust you now, and it's scary as shit but I still do, somehow. He wants to say that, but even drunk as he is, he knows it's a bad idea, and more than that, he's knows it's unnecessary. Blaine exhales, tequila fumes tickling Kurt's nose, and then slowly tilts his head up until their lips meet, and they kiss deep, hot, dizzy, underneath the golden midnight mist._

_When they get home, sobriety has begun to set in, which is helpful because it makes it much easier for both of them to get it up, and also because neither of them feels like wild sex tonight. They take it slow, paying attention to every touch and every noise, drawing each other out and making discoveries—because after everything, they're new to each other still, perfect little ever-evolving mysteries that are impossible without love, real love, which is blind and endless and forever leaves you wanting one more time._

Kurt is totally prepared for this meeting. Like, really prepared, spreadsheets and everything, bitches. He's even kind of psyched for it, except for the being late part, and he's right in the middle of formulating the perfect flip reply to any comments upon his tardiness when the door opens and he sees Isabel, three inches shorter than normal in bare feet, framed against a deserted scattering of chairs ranged around a long glass table.

"There you are! Didja get my cappuccino?" she chirps, plucks the smallest cup out of the pulp-paper tray. Kurt blinks and follows her back inside the conference room as she flounces over to a chair and drops into it with a sigh, plunking the cappuccino down on the smooth red-leather daily planner that is the only thing sitting on the table. A table that, to the best of Kurt's knowledge, was supposed to be occupied by two designers, their respective entourages, and Isabel's new intern, Brent.

"Um...Isabel?"

"Yeah?" She takes a casual sip of coffee and flips open the planner, scanning an entry for next week. Kurt sits down carefully beside her, wriggling his own latte out of its slot.

"Not to be abrupt, but where the hell is everyone?"

"Oh, that." She waves her hand at him without even looking up. "Shelly had a meltdown when she found out about the thing with the head of her makeup division and that model from Bali, and then Alejandro's production house in Italy had an actual meltdown, something to do with a boiler malfunction and the ventilation system, it'll cost him a couple million, whatever, so we're going to postpone the meeting until the weekend and I'm going to the spa in an hour and they are going to remove an entire layer of skin from the tops of my feet. It's supposed to be glorious."

"Hmmm. Well, then." This is Kurt's well-learned response to anything Isabel says about spas, or millions of dollars, or models from Bali, pretty much anything that smacks of a life lived outside what most human beings consider reality. "So that's the week, then?"

"Yep! Go, relax, recharge, rewind. Take your soon-to-be hubby out to for a night on the town," Isabel says with a smile, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. Kurt sighs and takes a long, leisurely draught of latte.

"I wish. He's in rehearsal until midnight tonight. The show goes into tech at the end of the month."

"I saw the listing in the Times, looks like fun."

"Did you already buy your ticket?"

"Kurt, it's an original show going up near Christopher Street, I don't think it'll sell out three weeks before opening. Oh jeez, that pout - fine, fine, I'll book through Ticketmaster in the taxi," she laughs, throwing up her hands. Kurt sniffs and nods his approval. "It better be good, though. I don't usually do off-Broadway without being related to someone or a hefty bribe."

"It is good, I've seen it. The music's great, the jokes are snappy, Blaine is fantastic - "

"Oh, is he?" She cuts him off, one eyebrow raised. Kurt sticks his tongue out at her.

"He _stands out_."

"Of course he does, to you," she says with an affectionate smile, and Kurt can't help but smile back. Isabel loves to tease him about Blaine, ever since he told her that they'd gotten back together and she'd done the "I Told You So" dance for a whole minute, never mind the two columnists and the photographer who'd been in the room at the time. "So how're the wedding plans coming? Is there a date yet?"

"We're thinking around Christmas, actually," Kurt admits with a slight blush, one that Isabel would have no way of knowing has to do with his secret ambition to perform "What Christmas Means To Me," as a substitute for the traditional Christmas duet, at their wedding. "It's our favorite season, and everyone will be off work for the holidays. We'll do a little civil service here and then go back home for the party, and even though both of us would absolutely die to get married in New York, like married proper, there is absolutely no venue available that we could possibly afford and still manage to actually invite the number of - watch it!"

Kurt lunges forward and tugs Isabel's red planner out of harm's way, seconds before a flood of cappuccino from the dropped Starbucks cup spreads warm and brown across the glass tabletop. Isabel is staring at him as he hurriedly tries to mop up the spill with the three teeny napkins tucked into the paper tray, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open.

"Isabel, what did you-are you okay? Isabel?" Neither his frantic swabbing or the concern in his voice is enough to rouse her, at least not until the worst of the cappuccino has been dealt with and Kurt has halfway risen to chuck the soggy napkins into a trashcan by the door. Just as he starts to sit back down, Isabel grabs his arm in a vice-grip.

"Ow! Pointy nails!"

"I know where you can get married," she says in a tone of hushed wonderment. Kurt freezes, still awkwardly leaning over the table, staring down at Isabel's long face.

"Wh-excuse me?"

"Gotham Hall." Each word is deliberate and slow, with its own echo of solemnity. Kurt's mind races, rifling through a catalog stuffed with three years of New York exploration to connect the name with a place-and when he finally arrives at the correct entry, he gasps before he can help himself.

"No. _No_," he says automatically, dropping back into his chair with a thud. Gotham Hall is a mindblowingly impressive building around 36th Street, with an exterior like a Greek temple and an interior like something out of a 1920's luxury hotel, all soaring columns and luxurious curtains, velvet furniture and crystal chandeliers. It's massive, able to fit more than a thousand people, and when Vogue hosted a show there last year he had spent the entire time taking surreptitious photos on Instagram and pretending he was a Disney character. The ballroom, even stuffed with fashion industry personnel and electronic equipment, made him want to cry and then smuggle Blaine in so they could waltz to "Tale as Old as Time."

And, it goes without saying, all of this costs more than Kurt will ever make in his entire life, plus two or three cycles of reincarnation.

"Isabel," he begins carefully, wondering how best to frame the facts of his limited funds to a woman who routinely buys replacement platinum bangles from Gucci because the old ones "lose their clink after a couple months." "That is so, so sweet of you to think of, really, and of course I would love to, but it's just-I mean, we have a budget to work with-"

"I need to give you a wedding present," she interrupts, a wide smile beginning to break out across her face. "The venue manager owes me fifty different favors for all the business I've sent her way, and I'll be seeing the owner in about half an hour while we get our feet peeled."

"I-I-" Kurt's head is spinning, visions of him and Blaine whirling together under the golden-lit dome above the ballroom colliding with Santana's marked-up bargain magazines. "That's crazy, Isabel, you can't-and near _Christmas_, they won't even have an opening, it's probably been booked up for years-"

"It _was_," she says smugly, poking him in the shoulder with one of her talon-like nails. "But if you are someone who is in the know, like me, and if you are someone with a steel-trap memory, like me, and if you are flawless, like me, then you will remember that _TIME_ pulled out their expo reservation literally this morning, and there's a ten-day block hanging open right now, which won't be filled yet because it's the weekend coming up, and also, if you are me, then you will remember this conveniently right when your darling assistant and good friend mentions that he needs a place to marry the love of his life."

When she finishes, Isabel is straight up grinning, her Dusky Autumn-painted lips pulled wide across a huge smile, and it only gets bigger when Kurt realizes his mouth is hanging open and he shuts it with a click of his teeth.

"You...but...we can't just...oh my God, it's _perfect,_" he whispers. Isabel leans forward and cups his face with one hand; even with four very spiky nails an inch away from his eyes, Kurt feels as safe and loved as he ever has. "Isabel, that would be perfect."

"I know," she says warmly. "And that's why I'm offering it to you. Because I'm going to tell you a secret, young man: there's a lot of compromises and low standards in this world, and you have to deal with them if you want to get by, but everyone-_everyone_, gay or straight, rich or poor, New York or Ohio-deserves something perfect. Even just once, something that is exactly as it should be. And when you have a chance at it, and it's something that really matters, then the people who love you have a responsibility to make it happen. So that you can know what it's like, and you can help the next guy have it too."

There are tears in Kurt's eyes, big fat ones that burn and threaten to fall, but he holds them back and swallows hard and very deliberately gathers Isabel's hands in both of his. Their eyes lock, and he remembers how even with her flakiness and her overspending and her occasional failure to give him his due credit, Isabel has been what can only be called the third mother to raise him. The amount of time they spend with each other, the passion they share for the art of clothing and the complexity of its arrangement on the human body, the love that has grown between them, is as precious to him as the warmth and caretaking he associates with Carole, or the perfumed wisps of sweetness with which he recalls his mother. Isabel brought him up in New York, in fashion, in being a person with dreams and big-city bravery. He trusts her to guide him, and in this moment, he finds that he trusts with his heart, and everything in it.

"Thank you." He swallows around the tangle of gratitude and joy and shock in his throat. "Thank you so, so much, Isabel."

"You're welcome, honey," she says, and kisses his cheek. She smells like expensive perfume and cappuccino. "Now let's get out of here. I've got some calls to make and some foot to lose."

_The day Blaine moves in, temperatures in New York hover just above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, from sun-up to sun-down. Everybody wakes up absolutely soaked in sweat, despite the three fans Kurt found cheap online and the other three fans Santana brought home in a shopping cart with no questions asked. There is a desperate brawl for the shower, which of course only supplies lukewarm water, and then Rachel throws a fit because Kurt forgot to buy new soymilk AND regular milk and so the only cold beverage they have is expired orange juice and a bottle of vodka is the freezer, and then Santana threatens to slap Rachel, and then Kurt changes his outfit four times because he keeps sweating into his layers, and by the time Blaine shows up at the loft in an air-conditioned taxi with four suitcases worth of stuff, murder is fast becoming the sensible option for the household to embrace._

_But he's Blaine, and when he's happy, truly happy, then the breezes seem cooler and the sun seems softer. Five minutes after seeing the condition of the loft and those within, he's run down to the corner bodega and bought a two-gallon jug of Poland Spring and a bag of ice, carrying it all upstairs himself, along with one of the four suitcases (Kurt takes two others, Rachel and Santana carry the third between them with minimal whining). He makes everyone a stiff drink of ice water, waits patiently for them all to refresh themselves, and restrains himself from throwing Kurt across the counter and kissing him senseless, instead giving his boyfriend a positively chaste peck on the lips and then bestowing the same upon Rachel and Santana's cheeks._

_Kurt finds an Oldies station on the radio and they all sing along to the Beach Boys, while Rachel loots the fridge and makes them a big salad with pine nuts and cherry tomatoes for lunch. Half an hour since he arrived, and Blaine has put everyone in a mood that is, if not wholly cheerful, then much less conducive to homicide._

_Once everyone has had something cold to drink, and once Santana has made herself a towel-turban and filled it with ice, the move-in begins—and ends, after much negotiating and handling of toothbrushes. Kurt has done a pretty good job of clearing out some space for Blaine in his drawers, and he's also bought a little round bureau that fits a lot but still tucks snugly in beside the bed as a combination chest of drawers/end table. With a little clever maneuvering-and with an impressive show of maturity on Kurt's part when he is forced to put some of his lesser-worn clothing into a box at the back of the closet ("You have literally worn that once, and after three martinis, and as a hat," Santana reminds him when he clings desperately to a vintage 1960's crimson-charcoal pinstriped cummerbund with pleated folds and a black silk cord)-they officially install Blaine into the loft as a full-time resident._

_Santana and Rachel have found other accommodations for the night, because they are nice and loving and because Kurt paid them both thirty bucks to stay out until noon tomorrow. But before they go, Kurt decides to make a celebratory dinner for everyone, as a thank-you to the girls for the moving help and a proper welcome for Blaine. Since the heat has barely abated with the coming of evening, he decides to make a big pasta salad with garlic bread, which is a choice greeted enthusiastically by all._

_As he stands at the counter cutting vegetables, Kurt finds his heart swelling with a massive influx of affection and domestic bliss. Everything looks even better than he had imagined in the long weeks spent waiting for Blaine to finally, finally, FINALLY move in. Now his boyfriend is standing by the stove in a tank top and a baggy pair of Cooper's old khaki shorts, stirring the pasta and laughing as Rachel tells him about her summer songwriting workshop while in downward facing dog (she's taken up restorative yoga and tries to practice most evenings). Santana, her ice-turban long since melted away, is making everyone vodka martinis with food coloring, fresh from a shower and wearing a XXL t-shirt that says, "Daddy's got a hankering."_

"_So, Hummel," she says suddenly over Rachel's anecdote about the parrot that their teacher kept in the back of the classroom. "I think we need to set down some house rules for you and the Littlest Gay."_

"_House rules?" Kurt replies, raising an eyebrow. This doesn't sound good. "What do you have in mine?"_

"_Well, for starters, there will be no having of any sex of any kind in any part of this loft, not while I am within a hundred and fifty feet of your sparkly gay wieners. UNLESS you get my special permission and also give me your white noise machine. And buy me a pack of earplugs from Costco."_

"_Are you serious?" Kurt says, setting the knife down so hard he barely avoids stabbing the table. "Are you actually fucking serious, Ms. I'll-Bring-Whoever-I-Want-Home-Whenever-I-Want-So- You-And-Rachel-Need-To-Lace-Up-And-Deal-Because-Th e-Lady-Train-Stops-Here-Now?"_

"_You're really terrible at nicknames, you know that?" she says without looking up from the martini that she is slowly and carefully dying a lovely shade of teal. "Take a chill pill, dude, I'm not saying y'all have to keep it in your pants for the rest of forever."_

"_I have had," Kurt continues, too incensed to let her finish speaking, "to listen to your random sex with random women for MONTHS now, including during finals and my God damn birthday, and you're trying to tell ME I have to regulate my sex life around your schedule?"_

"_Blaine actually lives here now, you're not just bringing him home for the night. I can't be always having to check whose dick is in what before I come in my own damn house."_

"_What the hell does it matter to you?" Kurt snaps, resuming his chopping with indignant intensity. "We can keep our volume down, and it's not like we'll be going at it on the living room floor or anything. If you don't know, why should you care?"_

"_Because we live here too, Dandelion. Respect that maybe Rachel and me don't always want to like, sit on the toilet or read a book and all the time try to tiptoe around so we don't disturb your dick-duo shenanigans." She looks him in the eye now, and although Kurt is still deeply annoyed by the self-righteousness with which she's approaching this topic, he grudgingly admits that her point is somewhat valid._

"_Can we compromise? Me and Blaine will do our best to work around you and Rachel's schedules, and if we-need to, we'll try and let you know ahead of time that we want the place to ourselves."_

_Santana snorts and squeezes a single drop of red food coloring into an as-yet untouched glass; it billows out, the color of blood, stretching smooth tendrils through the clear alcohol. "Yeah, right. And we're just expected to pack up and move out whenever you feel happy in your private places? Try again, Hummel."_

"_Santana, give us a little credit. You know Blaine, and you know me. We aren't like that." He looks up just in time to catch that tell-tale softening in her jaw that means he's hit her small but sensitive helping of humanity. "We're in love, and we love to, y'know-"_

"_Ride each other like rednecks at a tractor expo?"_

"_MAKE LOVE. But we have a significant amount of self-control and also, like, jobs and school and life. We're not going to be having sex every single moment we possibly can."_

"_Which is basically the whole point of being a gay man, so y'all fail that pretty hard," she adds, giving him a half-smile. He rolls his eyes and dumps a pile of cucumber slices into the salad bowl. "But okay. Say we ease up a bit and make rule number one that your nookie stays out of sight, out of mind, and out of earshot, on pain of death and beatings, and if you absolutely have to bend Anderson over the kitchen table and invade the Philippines from southern ground-"_

"_For the love of God, Santana."_

"_Then we get fair warning and you wait until it's convenient for US before you arm the troops." Satisfied with her metaphor and her conditions, Santana offers him a highlighter-yellow martini, which he takes with narrowed eyes and a slow nod._

"_...fine. But rule number two: you have to be able to hear Blaine and me say nice things to each other without mocking us into cardiac arrest."_

"_Mocking? MOI?" she asks with a hand pressed to her heart. Kurt doesn't even crack a smile. "But seriously, you know there is no way in hell I can live with the two of you and not let off some steam. I mean, just the way you gay babies look at each other is like being waterboarded with maple syrup. I have to call you out on it or I'll smother."_

"_Santana, if we're going to do this functionally-"_

"_Oh my God, FINE." She rolls her eyes and takes a large sip of her royal purple martini. "I'll lay off. But Jesus, you have to give me like a three-a-day quota or something, because y'all are too. Damn. Much. And you know it."_

"_Deal." Kurt begins to slice up a tomato. "Any other fascist demands?"_

"_Bet your Bedazzled ass. Rule number three: if you guys make it impossible to walk in the door without turning into a giant fucking third wheel, I will cut you. When you talk, you talk to the whole room, not just your little pepperpot over there."_

"_Fine."_

"_Rule number four: you're not allowed to have sex on my bed."_

"_Duh. Fine."_

"_Rule number five: you're totally allowed to have sex on Rachel's bed."_

"_Ew."_

"_Rule number six: if you're going to bring some skeeve from TriBeCa back here for a threesome, my camera is under the Yankees hat on my dresser and I want it in MP4 files, none of that .avi shit."_

"_In your dreams, Lopez. Anything else?"_

"_Yeah...rule number seven," she says slowly, swirling purple vodka in a slow circle. "Talk to each other."_

_Kurt looks up, surprised. This sounds less like Santana's familiar brand of obnoxious and more like...normal-people behavior. "What?"_

"_I said, talk to each other. I ain't up for another relationship implosion because you and Blaine can't be bothered to communicate. If you're going to force your love life onto your roommates, then you damn well better do whatever it takes to keep it from getting janky again, because I am not letting y'all lay down a duct tape partition between your separate sides of the loft. Keep your shit together." She levels her eyes at him, her gaze strong and serious. Kurt swallows and nods slowly._

"_I know. We will."_

"_I'm not kidding, Kurt." Her voice changes again, a little quieter, a little more feeling. "I saw what you were like without him, what it did to you. To both of you. The world's bad enough already without two people who love each other letting some mundane crap fuck up what they have."_

_He looks at her, and then past for her for a moment, at Blaine standing over a pot of pasta, his hair curly and frizzed a little from the lack of gel, his shoulders broad between the tank top, his laugh sweet and genuine. It's a vision Kurt has had for years now, one that he buried deep for most of the past year and has only recently resurrected; now that it's real, not a vision at all but true, solid, actual, he suddenly realizes how precious it is, and how much its preservation depends on him. He and Blaine made the decision to get back together, and now they have to be accountable for it. They have to be honest and raw with each other, to put the integrity of their relationship before everything else. If they do that, then maybe-just maybe-this is really It for them._

"_So is that it for the rules?" he says finally, leaving the vast uncertainty of the future to come back to here and now, with Santana and cucumbers and yellow martinis. Santana shrugs and finishes the last of her own drink._

"_Guess so. Unless Blaine or Berry have something to say about it. Yo, hobbits!" she barks over her shoulder, interrupting Rachel in the midst of another workshop story. "We're coming up with rules for Klaine so they don't get the whole house covered in homo-goo. Thoughts?"_

"_Homo-goo?" Blaine asks with a slightly alarmed expression, but Rachel, far more used to Santana's vernacular, take it in thoughtful stride._

"_Hmmm," she hums, coming gracefully out of camel pose. "I don't know. Maybe, like, everyone takes turns buying milk and toilet paper?"_

"_Oh for fuck's sake, Berry, I mean RULES, like for regulating their nasties. No humping on the couch, bottles of lube get separate recycling bin, that kind of thing."_

"_Excuse me?" gulps Blaine, flushing red, his eyes darting over to his boyfriend with a glint of panic in them. Kurt sighs and gives him a what-can-you-do? shrug as he dumps a pile of diced tomato into the salad bowl._

"_Santana, you hook up on the couch on the regular, so don't even," he says lightly, reaching for the olive oil. Santana picks up Blaine's sky-blue martini and Rachel's chartreuse one before sticking her tongue out at him._

"_Yeah, but biology dictates that my jolly-time juice isn't half as messy as yours. And there's two of you, so double the liquid volume."_

"_Okay, now we're done talking about that," says Rachel, looking squeamish. "How about, um, all hands in sight when you're not alone?"_

"_Where else would they be, exactly?" says Blaine with a quirk of his lips. Kurt stifles a giggle and starts to grind pepper. His heart is full, so full and warm and endlessly content that it feels like if he dares to really pause and dwell on what Blaine is making him feel, the sheer force of it might blow him apart like a nuclear bomb. And yet it's all he can do not to set down the pepper mill, climb over the table, and wrap himself around Blaine until there's no power on Earth that could coax its way between them._

"You have got to be _shitting_ me." Blaine's eyes are the size of hubcaps and he sounds like he's got a small mammal trapped in his throat. Kurt smirks and leans on his boyfriend's shoulder, peering past him at the computer screen that is currently covered in pictures of Gotham Hall, beautifully lit, magnificent and majestic and _theirs_.

"It's pretty, isn't it?" he whispers, hyperaware that Santana, Quinn, and Rachel are all asleep in their respective "bedrooms." Blaine whips around in his chair, nearly giving himself a black eye on Kurt's elbow.

"_Pretty?_ Kurt, this place is a friggin' palace," he hisses, barely able to keep his voice down. This is—it's where New York royalty gets married, Jesus, I'm like ninety-nine percent sure it's where _actual_ royalty gets married, and it's huge, and look at—the thing, I…are you joking?" His eyes narrow suddenly, and he grabs the front of Kurt's shirt in a grip that will cause unforgivable wrinkles. "Kurt Hummel, if you are screwing around with me right now, then I swear to God, I'm pawning my engagement ring and using the money to buy a wiffle bat so that I can _end you._"

"How sweet," Kurt says coolly, prying Blaine's hand off of his clothing. "But I'm dead serious. Which, minus the 'serious' part, is what you'll be if you ever do what you just did to a freshly ironed shirt again."

"But it's, God, Kurt, it's _huge!_ How are we supposed to fill that place with-and then everyone we know will-I mean, oh my God, I can't even begin to-"

"Honey? Breathe." Kurt reaches out and puts a solid hand on each of Blaine's shoulders, pinning him to the back of the chair. "If you have a panic attack and collapse, it will be difficult to convince the nice people in the pretty palace that we are functional adults who can get married without breaking their stuff or setting anything on fire."

"But Kurt, the _money_. It will cost _so much_, and I know Isabel is like family to you, but—but you can't just give a gift like this, can you?" he says helplessly, the Bambi eyes slowly blooming on his face. Kurt sighs and puts a hand on Blaine's cheek.

"I know, Blaine. It's a lot. But when Isabel wants to do something, she does it, and fast, and with a steamroller over anyone who disagrees with her. She faxed me the paperwork before nine o'clock, there's all sorts of forms and affidavits and stuff that looks like it's from Law & Order, and I don't understand most of it, but it's all signed. It's all done. I…I trust her. And I want this, for us, for me and you. Even when you get wrinkles in my shirt like this, Jesus, Blaine."

"Gotham Hall," Blaine says slowly, ignoring the admonishment. "We…are getting married…four days before Christmas…at _Gotham Hall_."

"Unless you'd rather rent out the veterans' community center back in Lima," Kurt suggests innocently, a smile only just tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Dad is friends with most of the guys there, I bet we could get a discount on table linens."

Actually, all he really manages to say is, "I bet we cou-" before Blaine launches himself out of the kitchen chair and grabs Kurt around his stomach, hoisting him like a sack of potatoes and spinning them round and round and round the loft. Kurt's chin bonks against Blaine's forehead and his arms are pinned at a particularly awkward angle but he couldn't care less in the world. Blaine is babbling muffled nonsense into Kurt's stomach, the loft is whizzing in circles around him, and for a moment, Kurt buries his hands in Blaine's hair and tilts his head back and smiles wider than he ever has in his life.

And things could have stayed so great, too.

Then Blaine makes a laudable attempt to go straight from twirling Kurt in the air to kissing the hell out of him, but between the centrifugal momentum and their respective height differences, it's a fool's mission right from the get-go. He trips, overbalances, and they both go crashing into the couch, Blaine's knees collapsing and his face buried in Kurt's solar plexus as Kurt bounces ass-first onto the cushions and then, carried by his own equal and opposite reaction, down onto the cold, gritty loft floor. It doesn't help that Blaine is apparently either unwilling or unable to release his hold on Kurt's waist, so that in addition to severely bruising the back of his shoulder and the side of his hip, Kurt gets the wind knocked out of him when Blaine's shoulder drives directly into his ribcage.

It seems likely that two people who each have minimum two years of intensive dance training might be able to handle such gravitational mishaps with at least a little dignity, perhaps a dash of stoicism. In reality, however, both Kurt and Blaine react to falling down with a series of shrieks, curses, and throat-scratching grunts, the least of which is enough to rouse a deaf sloth at twenty paces, let alone three twitchy and extremely irate young women sleeping ten feet away. Thusly, before Blaine can do more than roll halfway off Kurt and groan in pain, both Rachel and Quinn have stumbled out of their respective rooms, wearing pajamas and rather wild expressions.

"_What the hell happened is something on fire,"_ Rachel slurs, half-asleep. Kurt tries to answer, but his ribs feel like there's an anvil sitting on them and it's kind of hard to do anything but lie on the ground and suffocate.

"Blaine? Kurt?" Quinn rubs her eyes and squints at them, obviously trying to suss out the particulars of the situation. In response to the sound of his name, or perhaps to test whether or not his wrist is broken, Blaine lurches to the side and rolls completely onto his back, putting his weight on one arm and throwing the other across his eyes as though convinced that if he can't see Quinn, she can't see him. "Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah," Blaine says, his voice at a high and strangled pitch. "Just dandy."

"What the motherfucking fuckpants is going on," Santana snarls as she shoves her past Quinn, hair straggling out of her ponytail and plaid boxers bunched up under her ass. "Are you pissbitches serious right now? It's like two a.m."

"Sorry," Kurt manages on the teeny spoonful air that has leaked into his lungs. The ceiling above him begins to clear of bright spots and he notices a distinctly painful thrum around his left eye. "Accident."

"Oh my god," Blaine says in his weird high voice, and his worried face comes into view over Kurt's. "Kurt, your face."

"Did you fall down or something?" Rachel asks, coming all the way out of her room. She appears behind Blaine, purple nightgown slipping off one shoulder. "Is that why you're on the fl—oh my god, Kurt, your face."

"What?" He sits up, one hand coming up to gingerly prod the skin around his left eye, and _wow_, that hurts like a bitch. "What is it?"

"Damn, Hummel, that's one hell of a shiner," Santana comments blithely, leaning on Quinn's shoulder. Her girlfriend rolls her eyes and shimmies out from underneath Santana's elbow, coming over to kneel beside Kurt and gently tilt his chin up with one hand.

"Looks like something hit you in the face. Did you slip on the rug?"

"Something like that," Kurt hedges, wincing as Quinn touches his cheekbone softly and it twinges. "Is it really that bad?"

"No, babe, you look fine!"

"Yeah, Kurt, it's totally okay."

"Barely even noticeable."

"You look like a skinny gay panda," from Santana, and Kurt can tell from the way the other three cringe that she's telling the truth. He hoists himself off the floor—oh man, that is not a good feeling in his shoulder and his hip and his everything—and limps to the bathroom, where a split-second glance in the mirror over the sink confirms that yes, he has a magnificent black eye that is blooming ever wider and darker by the minute. He grits his teeth and tries to keep everything in perspective, because black eyes go away eventually and at least nothing's broken and it's not like Blaine _meant_ to pull a fucking Three Stooges routine out of his ass and drop them both like a WWE piledriver.

"Kurt?" Blaine peeps from the bathroom doorway, and Kurt turns to see him staring anxiously inside, the three girls huddled behind him. "You okay?"

"Yes," Kurt says evenly, after taking a moment to compose himself. "Yes, I am fine, thank you." He walks up to Blaine and loops his arms around his boyfriend's neck. "Anything broken on you?"

"Besides my pride and dignity, no," Blaine says ruefully, and Kurt smiles, even though it hurts to do so. God, he loves this guy. What's an accidental black eye here or there if you get to spend your life with this kind of person?

"So can we go back to sleep now?" Santana huffs, hugging Quinn from behind and letting her head drop heavily onto Quinn's shoulder. "Or are you guys going to do some more wigger breakdancing on top of the furniture?"

And then Kurt remembers. _Oh yeah. That's why we were spinning._

"You can head back to bed, Santana," he says airily, refastening his arms around Blaine. "Blaine and I will stay up a little longer though. Now that our wedding's got a venue, there's really no excuse for wasting time that could be spent on the details, know what I mean?"

"Excuse me? Who got a venue where now?" she says tiredly, raising an eyebrow. Quinn frowns and elbows Santana in the ribs.

"Honey, I thought you said you were going to start looking around next weekend, you didn't tell me—"

"Oh, Santana didn't find this one for us," Kurt interrupts, the familiar vibration of high, singing joy beginning to dance up and down his spine. "It's a gift, actually. From Isabel Bright? You know, my boss?"

"Isabel gave you guys a place to get married?" Rachel asks with a squint. "What, are you guys going to exchange vows in the storage closet? Because that would be kind of awesome."

"No, not at Vogue," Kurt says, although a little voice in the back of his brain remarks that it might not have been a bad idea. "Somewhere a little farther south, a little larger, with a little more razzle dazzle."

"Cut the crap, Hummel, what'd you score?" Santana snaps.

The name doesn't ring a bell. Neither does the address. The pictures online, on the other hand—

To put it another way, before the night ends, there is definitely more breakdancing on the furniture.


End file.
